


in this life and all others

by readbetweenthelions



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Arranged Marriage, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fools Falling For Each Other, Hux is Not Nice, It Seems For a Second As If There Will Be Dubcon But There Will Not Be, M/M, Oral Sex, Slow Burn, Uncomfortable Wedding, Wooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:25:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readbetweenthelions/pseuds/readbetweenthelions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The firstborn child of the Organa family and the firstborn child of a prominent military family, the Huxes, have been promised to each other since before birth, as a means of sealing a peaceful arrangement between the mercenary remains of the Empire’s military and a prominent ruling family of the galaxy. Brendol Hux III has never been particularly fond of this arrangement, but he was raised to do his duty. The time comes that the marriage can no longer be put off, and Hux is brought to Ben Organa Solo’s home planet to wed him. After the wedding follows a two-week long honeymoon, during which the newlyweds are expected to consummate the marriage or it will be at risk of annulment, and the peaceful arrangement will be at risk of dissolution. The problem is, Hux doesn’t really want to consummate this marriage. He doesn’t love Ben Organa Solo – he doesn’t even like him, really. The story follows Hux and Ren’s growing relationship and Hux coming to realize that he does want this marriage to work, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in this life and all others

**Author's Note:**

> Set in an alternate universe where things shook out a different way after the fall of Palpatine and the dissolution of the Empire. Instead of returning to a democratic republic model of rule, management of the galaxy was left to several trusted families – usually with a known lineage of Force-sensitive members – with each of these “royal families” presiding over a certain sector of the galaxy, usually the sector surrounding their home planet. The remains of the Empire persist only in the form of the military, which at this point has become a sort of power that is often contracted out to one or a few royal families when their own military troops aren’t enough.  
> The military (First Order), however, seeks greater power and influence than their current mercenary capacity. For this reason, the firstborn child of a prominent military family – the Huxes – was promised as a spouse to the firstborn child of a prominent royal family – the Organas. The promise of this contract has kept the military tightly linked to the Organa family, and once the marriage is consummated, the First Order will be effectively bound to the Organas. This union is to take place no matter the gender of either child. Both families ended up with firstborn sons.  
> Of course, our Hux doesn't really want to be married to some bratty prince.  
> Warnings: well for a very long time Hux is being forced into a relationship/marriage he doesn't want, but sexually there will be no actual dubcon/noncon (but a little bait and switch where it might seem like there will be for a moment, or a while). if that squicks you then skip this one!
> 
>  
> 
> [blithesea](http://blithesea.tumblr.com) made this incredible amazing video to go with this fic! watch it below or [check it out here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7087510) (you should watch it both before and after you read ;) )  
> 

Stars drift by silently outside the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall transparisteel window. From this location on the ship, the planet the ship is orbiting can’t be seen. Just the wide-open, sparkling tranquility of space, silent but for the hum of the ship itself.

Major General Hux sets his datapad on his desk with a clatter, disrupting the silence of his quarters. They’re forcing him to take leave – the higher-ups, his family, his father. Three weeks’ leave. Hux grips tight to the arms of the desk chair, as if holding on tightly enough will keep them from pulling him away from his command on this starship. 

He’s been told to report immediately to the Corellia system once his leave begins. There’s only one thing there for Hux: the latest home planet of the Royal Family Organa, in the absence of Alderaan. Hux’s stomach flips. He squeezes all the air from his lungs on his next exhale and reaches for a glass bottle of a rich amber liquid. He doesn’t bother with a glass to pour it into.

 

~*~

 

_“I don’t wanna,” says a young Brendol Hux, III, ripping his hand out of the grip of his governess: a woman who is too thin, with knuckles beginning to swell from arthritis, and with increasingly sizable chunks of gray streaking her natural dull, light brown hair. Hux doesn’t like this governess._

_“You don’t_ want _to_ _,” she corrects. “Well, you have to. He’s your betrothed, Bren.”_

_Five-year-old Hux folds his arms tightly across his chest and frowns powerfully at the nickname, too overly familiar for this presumptuous governess – or at least it is when Hux is irritated with her._

_“I don’t_ want _to_ _,” Hux says. Each word is deliberate this time. He won’t be scolded twice._

_Despite Hux’s protestations, he is brought into a room which already contains another child. Hux pouts. He doesn’t particularly like sharing spaces with other children. This other child is barely three, hardly more than a baby to Hux’s oh-so-grown-up eyes. He has dark hair, messy (not combed into absolute submission, like Hux’s), spilling into his eyes but still not hiding his overlarge ears. When he notices Hux and the governess walk in, he lifts his head and fixes Hux with a brown-eyed stare._ Brown eyes, _Hux thinks, and sneers. Hux has been told his whole life that his own red hair and green eyes set him apart, speak to his impeccable pedigree, his uniqueness and his destiny for greatness. This child with his dark hair and eyes obviously has none of Hux’s refinement._

_“Brendol, this is Prince Ben Organa Solo,” says the governess, at Hux’s side._

_Him, a prince? Hux wants to laugh. Just because he is sitting in this lavish playroom in this lavish palace doesn’t make this wretched child a prince. No. This, Hux thinks, cannot be the beautiful prince he has been promised for his spouse._

_“Did you come to play with me?” Prince Ben Organa Solo asks from the floor, a plastic bantha (complete with saddle) gripped in one small hand._

_“No,” Hux says, haughtily. He stalks over to a small bookshelf and pulls a thin storybook from it. Hux has been reading since he was Ben’s age. He makes himself comfortable, taking up the whole of an armchair that could fit three of him side-by-side. He cracks the book open and lifts it high enough to block Prince Ben Organa Solo from his vision entirely._

 

~*~

 

Hux strides towards the transport across the hangar, relishing the sound of his boots on the metal walkway of his Star Destroyer. Not really _his_ , he thinks, but it may as well be. He has a command here on the _Augury_ , and it’s home.

Flanked by underlings, Hux comes to a halt just short of the ramp into the transport. A pair of Stormtroopers carry his bags aboard. There’s enough for a month there – all the civilian clothes Hux owns, plus all his extra uniforms.

“Colonel,” Hux says to a woman with mousy brown hair and a wide-eyed, startled look that belies her true dependable, capable nature. “I trust you will ensure that my tasks are well looked after in my absence. My apologies. I do hate to leave you with so much on your plate.”

“Oh, it’s – no trouble at all, sir,” she says, her frightened eyes growing even wider. “Enjoy your leave.”

“Mm.”

Hux spares a last glance for his ship and accompanying crew members. He does hate to leave this. He has a nagging worry that things will fall apart in his absence, that he’ll return to his ship with a ring on his finger three weeks from now and the whole ship will have descended into chaos. Logically he knows it isn’t true. General Plack will have everything under control in his absence, just as she has everything under control in his presence. Hux sighs and places his boot on the ramp.

Once on the transport, Hux settles in for his trip, watching silently as the ramp closes and listens to the hiss as the transport pressurizes. The pilot flicks switches and presses buttons, and before Hux knows it they’re out of the hangar and into the black of space.

“Hold on,” the pilot says. “Making the jump to hyperspace.”

Hux sits up stiffly in his seat on the transport as the stars blur around them in the view out of the transparisteel windshield. He purses his lips. He had wanted to finish his bottle of alcohol before he left, but he didn’t want _them_ to smell it on him even after his hours-long trip to the Corellia system. He doesn’t exactly know who “them” will be – whether it will be the Organas, or his own family, or some horrible team of appointed officials and servants. None of the possibilities thrill him. He wonders if there will be fanfare, a royal greeting by way of trumpeters and announcers. The idea twists Hux’s stomach.

Hux wants to lie down. There’s a bed provided for him at the back of this ship, something Hux is not used to in simple transports and which he supposes he will have to get used to, starting now. He will likely be traveling in more style _everywhere,_ after this wedding. Still, he is rejecting the bed. He won’t have his perfectly combed hair mussed, won’t have his perfectly pressed uniform wrinkled, solely due to his own weakness in the face of the crushing weight of this responsibility. So Hux sits up straighter, and stares straight ahead. 

When the transport touches down on Corellia and Hux steps out of it onto the planet, he tries not to blink too much in the sunlight. This planet is as rich and verdant as he remembers, with sunlight that is much… brighter isn’t the word, Hux thinks, but  _whiter_ – than that of his own home planet. It’s the whiteness of the light that makes it so intolerably, searingly bright here, all the time. Arkanis rarely saw the sun, and when it did, the light there wasn’t nearly so harsh. Hux can feel his fair skin flushing under Corellia’s sun already. 

The welcoming party is worse than anything Hux could have imagined. It’s a blend of all the most sickening possibilities, though at least there is no trumpeter to greet him, as in all Hux’s worst imaginings of this moment. There are still servants and dignitaries alike, a whole crowd of them, and among them Hux spots his brother. Hux fights back a sneer. He has no fondness for Khyden Hux. However, Hux spots an upside: his brother may be here, but their father’s presence is absent.

Khyden is the first to reach him.

“Brendol,” he acknowledges formally.

“Khyden,” Hux responds. Neither of them extends a hand to shake, and they keep a respectful distance from each other – nothing that could be interpreted as familial, but then, neither of them have ever much claimed to care about each other as family.

Hux scans the crowd once again, now that the formalities have been observed with his brother. He catches sight of one man and suppresses a groan. Hux and his brother may be lacking their father in this scene, but there is still a fatherly figure in attendance: not Hux’s own, but that of his betrothed. Han Solo strides towards him in clothes that are decidedly formal, much more so than any Hux has seen him in before.

“Welcome, son,” says Han Solo.

Hux holds his face perfectly still, trying not to grimace. Han has always been his father-in-law-to-be, but Hux has never thought of him as much of a father. In fact, he’s always thought Han is an absolute fool, a ridiculous lowlife local who won the Galactic lottery when then-Princess Leia Organa took enough of a shine to him to marry someone of his status. Not an ounce of royal blood, no Force sensitivity, no military training, and a criminal’s outlook on life. Hux is certainly not fond of Han Solo. Not one bit.

There is, unfortunately, a hand extended to Hux this time. When Hux looks at Han’s face, Han is staring straight back at him, shrewd eyes inspecting Hux’s face for any unfavorable reaction. Hux shakes Han’s hand swiftly and waits for Han to step back. When Han does, it’s not by much.

“Land transport to the Palace,” Han says gruffly, nodding towards the small black ship across the wide clearing. Han has never managed to shake off his rough manner, gleaned from years of criminal behavior before settling down – impossibly, unbelievably – with the once-princess of Alderaan, the now-Queen of the Core region.

There are servants to take Hux’s luggage off the transport he arrived in just as there were troopers to put it on the transport before he left. Hux ignores them and lets them struggle to move his bags across the clearing that Hux crosses swiftly, ahead of the servants and the rest of his new entourage. The ground is squishy with moss and leaf litter and layers of soft, wet twigs, and Hux has the disconcerting feeling that his boots are stepping on a floor made of feather pillows.

The durasteel floor of the land transport is much more Hux’s speed, when he reaches it. Hux blinks to adjust his vision in the relative darkness afforded by the transport, but relishes this shielding from the too-bright light of Corellia. He situates himself on one of the long, padded benches that sit along the walls of the transport. Hux takes a place in a far back corner, furthest from the glaring light that filters in through the windshield. Hux’s brother sits himself as far from Hux as possible when he steps into the ship, on the opposite bench and far to the front, head turned towards the view from the windows and not sparing a glance for Hux. Hux hears the thudding of his bags being put in the cargo compartment at the back of the transport.

The other dignitaries, very few of whom Hux recognizes, filter in. For a moment, Hux thinks none of them will sit by him. Hux would be grateful for the elbow room and the relative solitude. But Han Solo, the last to step onto the ship besides the servants who are still grappling with Hux’s luggage, sits down immediately to Hux’s right.

Han must notice Hux’s attempt to subtly lean away. He leans in closer to Hux and murmurs, “It’s not a long ride, son. Fifteen minutes to the Palace, tops.”

Hux suppresses a noise of disgust. He doesn’t like Han calling him ‘ _son_.’ Hux has no plans to recognize Han as his father. His own real father, after all, is more father than Hux wants anything to do with. He doesn’t need a father-in-law breathing down his neck, too.

“Your Highness – ” Hux begins to protest.

“Oh, stop that,” Han interrupts. “It ain’t necessary. I know what you’re gonna say, and no, I ain’t gonna stop callin’ you ‘son.’ You’re marryin’ mine, so that’s what you are now.”

Hux folds his hands delicately in his lap. “Understood,” he says.

Hux stares forward, out the front windshield and into the sunlight. He feels Han looking at him for another moment, until Han gives up, muttering something under his breath. Hux breathes evenly and wishes, desperately, that he was back on his own ship instead of on this Force-forsaken planet, trapped in a transport with an army of sycophants, and Han Solo.

 

~*~

 

_Hux stands at attention, his back rod-straight and his arms at his sides, in his Academy uniform. It’s new, just this year, for fifteen-year-old Hux’s first year at the Academy; no longer does he wear the slate grey of the Junior Academy, but the proper black that he intends to wear for the rest of his life as he rises through the ranks of the First Order. His uniform, he has been told by his father, is acceptable dress for any formal occasion – which, Hux supposes, this is._

_He stands in a wide open room of the Palace on Corellia, watched and waiting. He’s supposed to meet his betrothed today. Hux has met him before, of course – on a single visit ten years ago, when neither of them were more than babes in arms. Hux remembers not liking Ben Organa Solo much at that time. But perhaps things have changed since they’ve both grown up._

_Hux waits. He stands at attention the way he’s been taught, his form perfect. He knows his father is watching, and his mother too. And Khyden, with jealous eyes. That makes the corners of Hux’s mouth twitch up – he may not be fond of this arranged marriage, but the idea that he’ll marry royalty and Khyden hasn’t a hope in hell of doing the same makes Hux feel satisfied and superior._

_The gold-plated protocol droid meant to serve as herald strides into the room, and Hux straightens his perfectly-straight back even further._

_“Ben Organa Solo, Crown Prince of the Core Worlds,” he announces, and steps to the side._

_Prince Ben slouches into the room without a smile, the cloak about his shoulders seeming much too heavy for him. He doesn’t wear a crown, not even a circlet, but there is a gold brooch pinning that cloak in place around his neck that marks him as definitively royal. He has dark features – dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark expression. Hux doesn’t see much of the smiling grace of Ben’s mother in him, nor the easy good looks of Ben’s father._

_Ben fixes his eyes on Hux, but Hux can’t read his expression. Hux returns the stare for a moment before bending at the waist in a perfectly-executed, respectful bow. It rankles Hux to bow to someone younger than him, but Hux knows he is well outranked, despite his greater age. When Hux straightens again, he once again fixes his gaze on Ben’s, holding Ben’s studying gaze with a defiant one of his own._

_Hux doesn’t hear much of the ensuing conversation. It doesn’t involve him directly, nor does it involve Ben, but despite knowing he should listen in he can’t tear his eyes or thoughts away from Ben. The prince looks sullen, burdened, as if he doesn’t want to be here. Hux scowls. He doesn’t want to be here either, but_ he _holds himself together, like an_ adult.

_“Why don’t the two of you go and spend some time together,” says Queen Leia eventually, with a benevolent and knowing smile, pulling Hux out of his musings on Prince Ben’s obviously lacking character. “You should get to know each other.”_

_And like that, Hux is swept away to the gardens, following Ben Organa Solo’s flowing cloak as he wends his way through paths that are familiar to him. It’s mid-spring and the sprouting grass of the lawns is bright green and insects buzz lazily above the flowers and shrubs that line he walkways. The too-bright Corellian sunlight makes the green of everything shine, the garden made of brilliant emerald and peridot and jade._

_They find their way to the banks of a small river that winds its way through the gardens. Tall trees with wispy, drooping branches bend over it, and the bushes here are of a different type than the hedges that line the rest of the gardens, but they are just as meticulously maintained. The first thing Ben does is strip off his cloak, leaving it in a messy heap on the grass. Hux eyes it distastefully. Ben searches the ground for something, wandering away from Hux and the discarded cloak to search under the trees and bushes. Hux stands at parade rest, thumbs curled around each other, and keeps his boots rooted to the spot in the soft grass. He keeps the corner of his eye on Ben and his search even as he watches the cool, clear water of the river flow over dark, smooth rocks._

_After a few minutes, Ben returns to Hux’s side, gripping a long, slim, gently curved stick in one hand and looking pleased with himself._

_“Do you want me to find you one, too?” Ben asks. “We could duel.”_

_“No,” Hux says, “thank you.”_

_Ben shrugs one shoulder and takes a two-handed grip on the stick and a wide stance with his feet, turned towards the bushes. With an exaggerated snarl, Ben sets on the bushes, whacking away with the found stick in his hand._

_He hacks and slashes at the bushes, using the stick in a manner that’s halfway between a sword and a staff. The wild strikes and messy technique belie a complete lack of training. Hux sniffs primly. At fifteen, Hux is already a precise shot with a blaster, his form decried as technically perfect by his instructors at the Academy. As for sparring, Hux doesn’t have the bulk of some of his classmates, but he has a left hook that is a force to be reckoned with._

_“I’m going to be a warrior when I grow up,” Ben says haughtily. “I’ll be Kylo Ren and a true king.”_

_Hux fights the urge to laugh. He sees in Ben none of the regimented, precise fighting style he admires and strives to emulate in his own training. Instead Hux sees a child, aggressively playing at swords._

_Hux knows that Ben is the sort who has been starved for playmates. They must be in short supply around a home such as this, especially for a prince who has no peers – none except other princes scattered across the galaxy, in their own sectors, and Hux, who has not been here. Ben doesn’t know how to talk to people his own age, or how to act with peers. Hux lifts his head a little higher. Say what people will about Hux’s lower-born, military upbringing – at least Hux has social skills._

_“We’ll see about that,” Hux says, turning away from Ben to watch the flow of the river._

_Hux sees, out of the corner of his eye, Ben squaring his shoulders. He was still slouching, even having removed his cloak. Perhaps, Hux thinks, what’s heavy isn’t Ben’s cloak after all, but the minimal weight of responsibility on his thirteen-year-old shoulders. Hux turns up his nose._

_“I_ will, _” Ben says hotly. “I’ll be Kylo Ren and everyone will bow to me.”_

_“Everyone already bows to you. You’re the Prince.”_

_Ben’s chest swells with outrage. “They’ll bow to me because of my strength! Not my inheritance!”_

_Hux doesn’t respond. When Ben doesn’t get an argument out of him, he goes back to slashing at the bushes, more viciously than before, until leaves are flying in every direction. Hux sniffs. The groundskeeper won’t be happy about that, if he sees it. Though the groundskeeper’s opinion doesn’t matter, really – what could he do in defense of his bushes against this bratty, belligerent prince who is hacking them up on a whim? Hux certainly won’t defend the bushes, either. He tears his eyes away from the battered greenery and watches the river flow by them, powerful and surging yet contained neatly within its banks._

_Hux longs for the halls of the Academy, a relatively new home to him, but already home nonetheless. He doesn't belong here, in the lush gardens of a lush palace. He belongs in the neat, disciplined environment of the Order, where things are predictable and controlled. Hux’s betrothed is the opposite of predictable and controlled. Suddenly, Hux feels the twist of irony – he’d been pleased with himself for lording this connection over Khyden earlier, and now Hux is realizing that he can’t abide this connection any more than Khyden can._

_Hux tightens the hook of his two thumbs around each other and tries to pretend that he is alone in the garden, and will be alone for the rest of his life; but he sounds of Ben destroying something behind him make it impossible for Hux to ignore reality._

 

~*~

 

They arrive at the Palace in less than fifteen minutes, true to Han’s word. Had it been rendered in stone, Hux would have called it a castle; as it stands, in mostly metal and wood, it’s more like a large mansion.

Hux’s boots crunch on the pebbled path as he lands on the ground, last out of the transport just as he had been the first one in. He doesn’t say a word to anyone. He doesn’t need to. He knows where he’s heading as well as any of them, ten-year-old memories of this place etched into his mind.

Yet Hux is rankled by the thought that he does not belong here. He’s still clad in his all-black First Order uniform, complete with gloves and hat and heavy boots. Corellia is a planet full of colors and warmth – nothing like the deep, freezing black of space and strict uniforms and the steel gray metal of a starship. Hux looks like a shadow here, like a black hole in a galaxy of colors and light.

They are greeted at the door of the Palace by a protocol droid, gaudy in gold plating and standing at eye level with Hux. Hux resists the urge to snarl at it. Hux has no love for droids made to look pretty instead of to be functional.

“Greetings, Major General Hux!” chimes the droid in a voice that is prissy and mechanical at once. “Oh, we are _so_ glad to have you. This wedding is to be the event of a lifetime, you know. You’re joining quite the family here, Major General, the most noble and – ”

“Threepio,” Han warns.

The droid looks thrown for a moment – as much as it can without facial expressions, at any rate. “Right – forgive my impertinence. This way, sirs.”

The droid turns and leads them through the broad, tall front doors of the Palace. The inside is as lavish as Hux remembers it, all expensive marble and gold trims with so much bright Corellian sunlight illuminating the place through the tall, wide windows that grace nearly every room and hallway that Hux thinks there would have been almost no difference had he just stayed outside in the gardens.

The droid now leading the party is spouting facts about the Palace as if guiding a tour; as if Hux hasn’t been here before, more than once. Hux ignores him. Their party is getting smaller, as dignitaries and servants excuse themselves to go about other tasks.

They’re deep in the belly of the Palace by the time Hux gets completely fed up with the protocol droid’s narration. Only Khyden Hux, Han Solo, and a pair of guards remain with them.

“Am I to be received by anyone else?” Hux interrupts, forcing the droid’s blathering to come to a halt.

“Leia’ll see you at dinner,” Han says gruffly from behind Hux before the droid can speak again. “Ben’s not around either. Take a few hours to rest up from your trip, son.”

Hux bristles once again at Han calling him ‘son,’ but says nothing.

“My quarters, then,” Hus asks the droid, hoping to receive an answer from the question’s actual addressee this time.

“Of course, sir,” the droid says, with a respectful incline of his head. “Right this way, sir.”

“No,” Hux says. “Send someone else.”

The droid stops in his tracks, somehow managing to look offended despite its lack of dynamic facial features.

“Finn,” Han sighs. “Will you take Major General Hux to his quarters, please?”

A dark-skinned and nervous-looking guard, clad in shiny metallic armor from the shoulders down, steps forward from the attending group of servants.

“This way, sir,” says the guard, and he motions towards a hallway branching from the foyer.

Hux doesn’t spare a last glance for his brother and Han Solo. He allows the guard to lead him through winding corridors until they reach a room at the end of a short offshoot of hall.

“You’re here,” says the guard. Hux has already forgotten his name, something with an F and an N.

Hux steps into the room without a word, taking in the new surroundings. The room is too bright, like the rest of the palace, like the rest of this planet – mostly due to the huge, tall window at the back wall of the room, with flimsy curtains that wouldn’t even block out light if drawn. Everything here is gold and cream, pale and baroque and lavish. It’s not Hux’s style at all, and he frowns at it.

“You’re dismissed,” Hux says to the guard. The guard throws him a sharp salute – and Hux appreciates that, as there’s been a distinct lack of respectful saluting around here – and retreats as quickly as he possibly can.

Left alone in the room, Hux looks out the tall window and out at the grounds. He sees the river he remembers, winding in the middle distance, and the still-perfect landscaping of the Palace gardens.  Hux sighs and begins to tug off his gloves. They’ve been trapping heat against his palms, useful aboard his ship in the cold of space, but not so useful here under the glaring sunlight of this damn planet. He removes his hat while he’s at it, setting it atop the dresser.

Hux’s bags are brought only minutes later, borne by the same pair of servants who had carried them onto the land transport. Hux instructs them to lay the bags out on the bed, where Hux can more easily unpack them.

“Thank you,” he says cursorily as the servants move towards the door to exit.

“Of course, sir,” says one. “Do you require anything else?”

“Could I get some – ” Hux rakes a hand through his hair. “Could I get some fucking darker curtains, please. I can’t stand this fucking sun.”

“Yes sir,” says the servant, going immediately to fetch them.

By the time the servant returns with heavier, thicker curtains, Hux has laid his suitcases on the bed and opened them. He pauses in his unpacking to oversee the servant removing the old curtains and hanging the new over each window, and to order the servant to draw the curtains closed the moment they are up. The curtains don’t block out all of the light, not by a long shot, but they block at least most of it. The light level is more familiar to Hux this way, more reminiscent of the modulated artificial lighting of his starship deep in the black of space. When the task is complete, Hux dismisses the servant swiftly, wanting to be left alone in silence.

Hux has a while to kill until dinner, he knows. With no obligations until then, Hux makes use of his time to carefully hang each garment in need of hanging, to shake out and meticulously re-fold those that need folding, and to organize drawers and closets to his personal liking. If Hux cannot have his ship and the rank-and-file orderliness of the military, then he’s damn well going to have it in his temporary quarters for the duration of this visit, at least.

By the time Hux has organized everything to his liking, the Corellian sun has begun, blessedly, to set, tinging everything in Hux’s room a pinkish-orange through the dark curtains. Hux sits for a moment on the bed and surveys his surroundings. He hardly gets one deep breath in before he is interrupted by a rapping at the door.

“Major General Hux?” says the muffled voice of a servant through the door.

Hux stifles a groan of frustration and calls out loud enough for the servant to hear his reply. “What is it?”

“Dinner will be served in the main dining room in one half hour.”

“Thank you.”

Hux takes another deep breath, and then places his hands on his knees and stands. He should dress for dinner. His uniform – which he is still wearing – isn’t exactly suitable for dining privately with a queen. Even if it is acceptable dress for formal occasions, Hux has been wearing it all day. He should try to impress, after all.

Twenty minutes later, Hux emerges from his quarters, wearing the most expensive outfit of civilian clothes that he owns. He wends his way through the halls, ignoring the expectant and helpful faces of servants and droids, determined to remember where the dining room is under his own steam. Hux finally comes to the open door of the dining room, guarded by a blank-faced servant posted there to receive dinner guests.

“Sir,” murmurs the servant as Hux strides through the doorway, “you’ll be seated to the Queen’s right.”

Hux nods his acknowledgement and crosses the dining room in a few long strides. His seat is empty and waiting, beside Queen Leia – whom Hux directs a low, respectful bow towards – and his sour-faced father.

“Father,” Hux says.

“Son,” his father replies, gruffly.

Hux sits himself primly in the chair between his father and the head of the table, arranging the edge of his coat under himself. He spares a glance for his mother, who leans around her husband and gives her eldest son a soft, drawn smile. She looks much older than Hux remembers her, with deeper lines in her face and her skin beginning to cling to her bones in the absence of body fat, lost as she’s aged. It’s been years since Hux saw her, after all. He can’t remember the last time he even saw her face on his comm, let alone saw her in person. Hux looks away.

Hux takes the time to scan the rest of the assembled dinner guests. Directly across from Hux sits Han Solo, who is studying Hux openly. Hux lets his gaze skip to Han’s left – an empty seat. To the left of that sits Hux’s sister Elyn, in a pretty green dress that brings out her eyes. She smiles at him. She remains Hux’s greatest joy in this galaxy, a position she has held since Hux held her as a newborn in his ten-year-old arms. She is sixteen and pretty now, with characteristic Hux copper hair and green eyes and long limbs. No matter how tall and lovely she has become, however, Hux will always see her wide-eyed and gap-toothed at eight years old. 

Hux gives her the briefest of smiles in return. He wants nothing more than to talk with her, but she is seated so far away as to make conversation between the two of them impossible without shouting. He shifts his gaze away, taking in the rest of the dinner guests.

Hux notes, for a moment, the presence of an old man to Elyn’s left. Hux has never seen the man before, and he doesn’t bear much resemblance to Han Solo or to Queen Leia, so Hux doubts a family connection. There’s something strange and unsettling about the old man. It’s uncomfortable, somehow, to look at him – to avoid him, Hux’s gaze slides back to the empty seat between Han and Elyn.

“Where is my fiancé?” Hux asks. He busies his hands with straightening the cutlery at his place setting.

“Ben is out,” Leia says, “on business. He’ll return tonight.”

“We’re to be married in a week and he isn’t even here to receive me?”

The instant after his comment, Hux feels the heel of his father’s boot grind down on his toes – a painful reminder not to forget himself. Hux’s eyes shut briefly, his only concession to his desire to wince at the pain.

“The Prince is a busy man,” Hux’s father says. His voice drips with diplomacy for the royals, and warning for Hux.

Hux feels irritation like acid on his tongue. As if Hux _isn’t_ a busy man, as if Hux doesn’t have a thousand tasks on his ship that have had to be delegated to his lessers.

“Mm,” Hux says.

Dinner is served within minutes, and the conversation picks up gradually. Hux occupies himself with his dinner, and with the glass of red wine poured in front of him.

“I’ve heard _rumors,_ Your Highness, of unrest in systems near your kingdom’s border with the Colonies,” says Khyden. He says this with a glance down the table – not at Leia, whom he is addressing, but at Hux, whom he is obviously intending to antagonize.

Hux resists the urge to sigh. Leave it to Khyden to bring up sensitive politics at the dinner table. It’s his nature to stir up trouble, and has been since the day he was born.

“You have heard correctly,” Leia says. “The situation is tense.”

“It sounds like a situation the Order may be of some use in sorting out,” says Hux’s father. His attempt to smooth out his younger son’s conversational wrinkle is admirable, but Hux knows before he’s even finished his statement that it won’t land easily with Leia.

“I am not of the opinion that I need to use force on my own subjects,” Leia says coolly. “I intend for the Order to be defensive, not offensive.”

_So she’ll turn us into a police force,_ Hux thinks. He thinks about nodding in agreement, but he can’t bring himself to lie, even non-verbally. He takes a long, slow sip of his drink instead.

“The situation should be resolved with diplomacy,” Leia continues, “or not at all.”

“Not at all?” Khyden says. “Would you let them secede, then?”

“If that’s what they believe is best for their systems.”

Hux eats his dinner and keeps his opinions to himself. Normally, he would engage in the discussion, but as of now his mind is elsewhere. His eyes stray over and over again to the empty chair beside Han. At least he hasn’t had to face his fiancé yet.

He hasn’t seen the Prince in years. Hux wonders if he grew into his ears and nose, and if he’s still as weedy and covered in spots as ever. Hux can’t say he thinks much of the Prince’s temperament – or his priorities, given his absenteeism. Half of the food on Hux’s plate grows cold, untouched, while Hux’s stomach churns with dread.

When dinner is finished, the Queen stands from the table first, politely taking her leave from Hux. She is followed closely by her husband. Hux’s family leaves shortly after, his parents retiring to their room and his siblings headed to their own quarters. Hux is nearly the last out, striding quickly to catch up with his sister.

“It is good that you are here, Major General,” says a voice behind Hux. It stops him in his tracks, one foot out the door of the dining room. “You will be good for Lord Ren. He needs someone of your nature – you will make him more disciplined, less soft…”

_Lord Ren?_ Ah – he means the Prince. Hux studies the old man, gaze skipping over Snoke’s bald head, his wrinkled, scarred face, his spindly fingers poking out of the sleeves of the dark robe he wears. There’s something strange about the old man’s voice, as if more air is escaping his throat than is being used for the act of speech.

“Pardon me,” Hux says. “We haven’t been introduced.”

“I am Snoke,” wheezes the old man. Hux waits expectantly for him to offer an explanation as to who he is and why he was invited to sit at the table at a dinner whose only other guests were members of the two families to be joined. This man hadn’t even offered any titles with his name – no “Lord” or “Sir” or “Councilman” to justify him.

“Snoke,” Hux repeats slowly, and pauses again for some clarification. “Right,” he says, when none is forthcoming. Something like dread creeps over Hux’s skin.

“Yes,” Snoke says. Hux hardly believes that Snoke is actually addressing him. Snoke’s gaze feels as if it’s raking over him, making marks on his body somehow. “Very good for Lord Ren. There’s potential in you – for great things. With him.”

“I am – glad…” Hux pauses, blanching at his own lie, “that you approve of our union. Snoke – what is – what is it that you do?”

“I am Ren’s master,” Snoke says simply.

Hux stifles a snort. As if this withered creature was the master of anything, let alone the Prince! Perhaps he’s senile. Hux gives Snoke his best attempt at a sympathetic smile.

“If you’ll excuse me, my lord,” Hux says, “I was on my way to find my sister.”

“Certainly.”

With that, Hux slips from the dining room, leaving Snoke alone. The creeping dread imparted on him by Snoke, unfortunately, comes with Hux as he wends his way through the halls of the Palace.

Hux tracks down a maid who points him (a little fearfully – of him, Hux notes with satisfaction) in the direction his sister went. Hux eventually comes to an open bedroom door. Peering inside, he finds his sister, her blazing red hair spilling over her shoulders and her green dress. Hux knocks on the door, three short raps that have always been his knock, a marker for instant recognition.

Elyn turns her head to the door, and a wide grin breaks across her face.

“Brendol,” she sings, crossing the room and throwing her arms around Hux’s neck. He hugs her close with his hands on her upper back. 

“Hello,” he says, smiling faintly over her shoulder, where she can’t see. 

“You’re getting married.” Her voice is muffled where her face is pressed close to Hux’s shoulder. She sounds happy about the wedding, thrilled, in a way Hux will never be able to bring himself to be.

“Mm.”

“Aren’t you excited?” She pulls back from their hug to examine his facial expression. “You’re marrying a prince!”

“I’ve always been marrying a prince,” Hux sighs. “Since the day he was born.”

“Yes, but now the wedding is in one week.”

“A week of this circus?” Hux asks, the corners of his lips twitching up.

“And two weeks of honeymoon,” Elyn grins.

“Stars,” Hux breathes, and collapses on Elyn’s bed. “I’ll never survive it.”

Elyn sits beside her brother on the bed and ruffles his hair. “Can’t stand to marry a handsome prince and live happily ever after? You were always difficult.”

“You think he’s handsome?” Hux asks, fixing an eye on her face and ignoring her comments on his personality. His sister has been here for days, he knows, having arrived with their parents. She must have seen some of his fiancé – more than Hux has in a decade, at any rate.

“He’s not bad,” Elyn shrugs. “Once you get used to his face.”

Hux has no intentions of sticking around long enough to get used to Ren’s face. He’ll live in self-imposed isolation in space for the rest of his life if it means never getting familiar enough with Ren’s face to grow to like it.

Hux turns his attention back to his sister. “How have you been, Elyn?”

“Fine enough,” Elyn shrugs. “What about you? You never call. And you look – drawn.”

“The promotion. It’s a lot of stress.”

Elyn nods, and looks at her lap. She knows as well as anyone how stressful the job can be. She grew up with their father’s military ways, and Hux following in his footsteps.

“Brendol – ”

“Major General Hux?” says a small voice, cutting across Elyn’s. Hux turns his head in the direction of the door of the bedroom, toward the servant who had spoken.

“What is it?” Hux says waspishly. “I’m in the middle of something.”

The servant shifts from one foot to the other. Hux believes this open nervousness is rather unprofessional, for someone whose whole job is fetching people and announcing them. “You’re to meet with Prince Ben – I’ve been instructed…”

Hux throws a glance at his sister. Her eyes are wide – Hux thinks he sees something there like disappointment, or concern.

“Take me to him, then,” Hux says, resigned.

“Ah, well, he’s only just returned, but – ”

Hux stands. He tugs at the bottom of his jacket to straighten it. “Whatever room you’ll have me meet him in, then.”

“Yes, sir, please follow me.”

Hux gives Elyn another apologetic look as he leaves the room. She waggles her fingers at him, a small farewell.

The servant leads him to a sitting room – one of many in the Palace, Hux knows – with a wall of windows opposite the door they entered that would let in an abundance of light in the daytime. This room is decorated more darkly than many in the palace, dark woods and red fabrics on everything. The room is lit dimly, with an orange-ish light obviously meant to emulate the glow of candlelight – it’s an aesthetic choice Hux doesn’t approve of, since the room could have been lit much brighter with the same efficiency. Hux studies each detail of the room as he waits for the Prince, and finds it too lush for his own tastes but at the very least, well-maintained and entirely free of dust. There’s got to be a small army of droids who do the cleaning up around this place, but Hux can’t say he’s ever seen any of them.

“Do you need anything, Major General Hux?” a servant asks. “A drink, perhaps?”

“No, thank you,” Hux says, though perhaps the one thing he desires more than anything else in the galaxy at this point is a stiff drink. It might be better to stay sharp for the coming conversation, however.

“Prince Ben will be in shortly,” the servant says, inclining his head in deference to Hux and excusing himself from the room.

Hux waits another ten minutes before the Prince arrives, sweeping into the room in a flurry of dark fabrics and dark, curling hair. Ben Organa has decidedly grown into himself in the time since Hux saw him last. His shoulders are broad, his chest muscular, his features evened out such that even if he cannot quite be considered handsome, he also isn’t ugly. His hair is long enough now to cover his unfortunate ears, and it has lost both the unkempt look of his early childhood and the greasiness of his early teens. The cloak he wears now does not seem to weigh on his shoulders the way the old one did, and nor does he slouch the way he used to; now he holds his head high, walks with long strides, holds his shoulders back. His posture adds to his height – he has at least a few inches on Hux in addition to his greater breadth. It rankles Hux that Ben, who is younger than Hux and who was so scrawny when last they met, has now surpassed Hux in size.

“Major General Hux. You’re here,” the Prince says, his dark eyes burning where they’ve locked onto Hux’s. “At last.”

“I could say the same for you,” Hux replies tightly.

“I have been otherwise occupied.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Hux holds out his hand for the Prince to shake. He takes it strangely, not like a normal handshake. An odd feeling creeps up Hux’s spine as the Prince brings Hux’s bare hand to his lips.

“What are you doing?” Hux asks with a shiver, pulling his hand abruptly away. 

“We’re to be married. A handshake seems impersonal, considering we’ll soon be sharing a bed.”

Hux scoffs. “That doesn’t mean you need to _kiss my hand._ ”

The Prince’s face is an impassive, regal mask. He rakes Hux’s body with his eyes, as if surveying an item he’s proposing to buy and noticing a distinct defect. “I apologize for being chivalrous, then.”

“A kiss on the hand is more than a little ridiculous,” Hux says. “I’m not a woman. I’m not your blushing bride.”

“We _are_ to be married.”

“And yet, I am _still_ not a bride,” Hux says coldly.

“You’ve grown into a fine man,” the Prince says, voice dispassionate, dark eyes still flat and hiding any emotion. Hux bristles. For him to say that to Hux like that, as if he’s livestock, as if he’s a beast that will produce particularly fine meat – well. Hux’s upper lip curls. 

“I’m sure you will have heard that our wedding is to be in one week,” the Prince continues, without regard for Hux’s sour expression. “It’s been far too long coming. We would have had all this behind us back when I came of age, if I had my way. But custom dictates that while in training to receive the title of Master of the Knights of Ren, one should cut out as many distractions as possible – and that means weddings and husbands.”

“If you don’t need _distractions_ , then I don’t see why this marriage should be made.”

“I’m Kylo Ren now. My training is complete. I can allow myself any distractions I wish.”

“If you wanted to be married so long ago, then isn’t it the – this _Ren_ training – the distraction? Why did you need to do it?”

“I promised you I would.”

Hux tries not to sneer, remembering that day on the riverbed ten years ago. The Prince had said then that he would be Kylo Ren; that he would be a warrior. Hux still doesn’t see much of a warrior in him. Not any more than he did that day. Ren still looks like a prince in fine robes, now with a lightsaber holstered at his belt – for show, Hux doesn’t doubt. Hux sees warriors, real warriors, every day. His soldiers are _real_ warriors. Ren looks like a cheap imitation in comparison to Hux’s troops.

“I don’t remember such a promise,” Hux says.

Ren sniffs. “It’s a heavy honor, you understand. A lordship. A warrior’s title.”

“Congratulations, then.”

The two of them study each other for a moment. Hux is not particularly fond of Ren. He is haughty and spoiled, and however much formal training he has in a warrior’s ways, that doesn’t mean his pampered hands have ever seen real battle. Hux speaks first.

“Listen here, Ren – ”

“ _Lord_ Ren. If you will use my titles, you’ll use them properly.”

“ _Lord_ Ren. I want to get this over with as quickly as possible, so that I can get back to my ship – ”

“Your _ship_. I assure you, there is nothing aboard the _Augury_ that is more important, politically, than being here and marrying me.”

Hux swallows hard. His work aboard the _Augury_ _is_ important. Ren might have a point about this marriage being more politically significant, but not _every_ important task is a political one. “Yes, well, the quicker this business is done – ”

“The wedding will be in one week,” Ren says flatly. “There will be two weeks of honeymoon following it. The itinerary is not flexible.”

Hux squares his shoulders. “Will that be all, Lord Ren?”

“You will be expected to perform duties as my fiancé in the coming week,” Ren explains. “Preparations for the wedding are being made. You will need to have garments tailored, and you will want to choose what sorts of refreshments will be served at the wedding, and what color scheme you want the reception to follow, I have no doubt.”

Hux cares nothing for refreshments and color schemes and tailored garments. It rankles him, somehow, that Ren thinks he _would_ care for them, and that Ren is leaving the responsibility of it all in Hux’s hands.

“Fine,” Hux says. “Will _that_ be all?”

“I expect you to act like my fiancé, as well,” Ren says. “I expect to see you at meals, and at any necessary meetings. I expect you at my side when I want you.”

“You expect me at meals when you don’t even show up to them yourself?”

“I have work to be doing.”

Hux fumes. He’s not a wedding planner, and he’s most certainly not Ren’s arm candy. “I told you that I am _not_ your blushing bride. I have as much work to do as you, if not more. I won’t be relegated to comparing fabric swatches all day.”

Ren takes an imposing step towards Hux, looming over him despite only having a couple inches’ advantage in height. “Your _job_ for the next week is _this wedding_. If you want it to go smoothly and quickly, then you had better _make_ it.”

Hux glares up at him, but swallows his protests.

“ _That_ will be all,” Ren says.

Hux watches Ren turn on his heel and walk out of the room. Hux fumes, standing silently in the middle of the room with his hands so firmly locked behind his back at parade rest that the pressure of his fingers begins to hurt. He won’t be ordered around by – by a – by _that_ –

With a bark of frustration, Hux storms out of the sitting room, headed towards his rooms. He wishes he had brought his bottle of brandy with him from the _Augury_. He needs it now much more than he did before his meeting with Ren.

 

~*~

 

Hux wakes the next morning to the unpleasant sensation of the sun filtering through even the heavy curtains he’d had installed. Hux hates waking up on this sunny planet. He’s used to waking up in the black of space, and staying in it all day. Hux longs for his ship, for the quarters his recent promotion to Major General have afforded him. There is an outwardly-facing wall made entirely of transparisteel, and Hux could spend hours staring out of it, observing the stars and fantasizing about making all of them, every last one in the universe, his own.

The morning sun is nothing like the glittering black of space. Hux winces against it as he stands from bed and dresses. He intends to start his day with some breakfast, and perhaps send a message to the colonel he left in charge of his day-to-day tasks, to check in. And then, perhaps, he’ll find Elyn and –

Hux is accosted immediately upon exiting his room. It’s the dark-skinned guard from the day before, looking as skittish as ever. Hux rolls his eyes and turns away from him to walk down the hall.

“Major General Hux, sir,” says the guard, trailing meekly after Hux down the hallway. “You’re needed in the, uh – you’re needed for a fitting – ”

Hux stops in his tracks. “Excuse me? I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

“I know, sir, I’m sorry, sir. I was asked to bring you to the tailor to – ”

Hux holds up his hand for silence. The other hand grips tightly into a frustrated fist behind his back. “Fine,” he says. “Bring me to the tailor, then. And once you have, fetch me some breakfast. And make sure they schedule these things for later in the day next time. I don’t _want_ to shoot the messenger – but I will. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” says the guard, throwing him an obedient salute.

Hux lets himself be led to a large room mostly devoid of furniture – a chaise or chair here and there, but none of the lavish couches and large, beautiful tables present in the rest of the Palace. The tailor and a pair of assistants are waiting for him as he enters the room. Only the assistants look suitably intimidated by Hux’s venomous expression.

“Summoning me first thing in the morning,” Hux admonishes. “It seems disrespectful. You will inform me no later than dinner the night before if you’re going to require me this early.”

“Apologies,” says the tailor. “We need to get preparations started right away.”

“Proceed, then,” Hux says. He snaps his gaze over to the guard, who is still standing nervously by the door. “Didn’t I tell you to get me something for breakfast? Some toast and a hard-boiled egg will be sufficient. I trust you can manage that.”

The guard salutes quickly and scampers out of the room.

“We’ll need to take your measurements,” the tailor says.

“Obviously,” Hux replies. “I’d rather see your possible designs first, and have my breakfast. _Then_ you can take my measurements.”

The tailor shows Hux three mannequins in an adjoining room, each with a different style of garment hanging from them. All of them are entirely in white fabric – there are gold accents, and one design has a bold red sash draped over it, but it’s the white that Hux blanches at.

“Oh, no,” Hux says. “I won’t be wearing any of these.”

“I – why ever not, sir?”

“White does nothing for my complexion.”

“It’s traditional to wear white at – ”

“White is for virgins. Or for women, at any rate.”

“In Corellian tradition, white isn’t meant for…” the tailor says. Hux can sense the man’s patience fraying, but he pays it no mind. “It is customary for _any_ spouse of a royal of House Organa to wear white. King Han wore white at his – ”

“Oh, and I’m sure he was _far_ from virginal at that time, indeed. Well, on _my_ home planet, a man ought to wear _black_ to his wedding.”

“White is _traditional_.”

“Oh? And what will the _Prince_ be wearing?”

The tailor pauses, sheepish. “I – black, sir. With purple, red, and gold – ”

“If _he_ can wear black, why shouldn’t I?”

“It signifies – ”

“I don’t care. For the last time, I won’t be made into some sort of blushing bride. I will be dressed as a man should, given that I am a man. Am I understood?”

The tailor stops trying to fight. Hux studies the gold trim and red accents with a critical eye until the tension is interrupted by the return of the guard with his breakfast.

Hux holds as still as a statue while the tailor takes his measurements, letting him and his assistants position him as they need. As he stands with his arms outstretched at his sides and beginning to ache from the effort of holding him up, Hux looks into his future for the coming days until the wedding and tries to fight the feeling of dread. And the wedding preparations are one thing – he can’t even bring himself to think about the days that will follow.

 

~*~

 

Hux strides into the open air of the gardens with a great feeling of relief, despite the sun that beats down on him from overhead. Hux has been tasting cake all morning, an activity that has left him sick with the sugar and sour with the effort of trying to discriminate between different types of buttercream. The baker this morning is at least more tolerable than yesterday afternoon’s cook, who was, by Hux’s judgement, utterly incompetent. The baker is a woman, middle aged and soft around the edges, with a kind smile that Hux could see growing increasingly more strained as the morning went on, Hux having proven to be more difficult than it seemed she had imagined.

Perhaps, Hux thinks as he sits on a stone bench at one side of an open, grassy courtyard, if he truly doesn’t hold back on his discriminating tastes, they will get fed up with him and he’ll be released from his wedding planning duties. He hasn’t even gotten to send a message to the colonel and check up on things between all this nonsense.

Hux sits with his hands on his knees, staring out at but hardly seeing the greenery of the courtyard around him. The baker will settle on a frosting for the cake – or perhaps she’ll give up and cover the thing in fondant – and have preparations for it done by tomorrow, in time to start the cake the day after. The woman has grandiose ideas about the size of the cake and the detail of the decoration that Hux thinks are, frankly, excessive, but she prattled on about the _importance_ of the first royal wedding in over twenty years, the Queen’s only son… Well. Hux just hopes she doesn’t give in to the temptation of fondant. Hux has absolutely no liking for the stuff.

“Ah, Hux.”

The sound of his name jerks Hux out of his thoughts of confections. Hux turns his face towards his visitor. It’s Ren, of course, clad all in black as he always is, cape flowing as he approaches Hux, boots heavy on the stone of the walkway that cuts through the courtyard.

“My Lord Ren,” Hux acknowledges, and turns to face straight ahead once more.

Ren stops near Hux’s bench, casting a shadow over half of Hux’s body as he looms between Hux and the bright Corellian sun. “Enjoying the gardens?”

“Not particularly,” Hux says.

“I don’t much like them either,” Ren says. “A waste of space, in my opinion. Something more practical ought to be done with it all, or we should leave the outdoors to the animals.”

Hux’s brow furrows. He is of a very similar opinion, actually, but this feels somehow like a trick to gain Hux’s favor. Hux doesn’t say anything, and Ren sits down next to him on the bench.

“Your cheeks are red,” Ren comments.

“It’s this ridiculous sun,” Hux says, scowling and bringing his hands up to touch his too-warm cheeks. “This whole fucking planet is too bright.”

“Some color may do you good,” Ren says. “I hear you’re refusing to wear white for our wedding.”

Hux sniffs and picks at the cuticle of his thumb with the nail of his index finger. “White at a wedding is for women.”

“Not on this planet, it’s not. It’s traditional for the spouse of a royal to wear white.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard the spiel,” Hux says testily. “It will wash me out.”

“You’ll look handsome in anything,” Ren says. “The tailor will see to it.”

Hux snorts. “So,” he says, “you’re saying I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

Ren considers for a brief moment. “Yes, that is what I’m saying.”

“Why put me in charge of wedding preparations if you’ve already decided for me?”

“The rest of it is for you to decide,” Ren says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “What about the cake?”

“The cake can go to hell, for all I care,” Hux says, folding his arms tightly across his chest. “I’m not dealing with it any further. The baker, tell her – or tell someone to tell her – that if I taste any fondant on the finished product it will be her head.”

Ren makes a low, strange sound in his throat, then makes it again. It takes Hux several seconds to realize that he’s laughing.

“You certainly are ruthless, Major General.”

Hux stares at Ren. Ren could either be making fun of him, or giving a genuine compliment. Hux searches his face for some sign of which it could be, but he doesn’t know how best to read those dark, appraising eyes or the quirk of a smile on his long features.

As Hux is trying to puzzle out Ren’s expression, Ren – now with his torso turned towards Hux and his eyes straying from Hux’s gaze and down to his lips – leans in towards Hux. Instinctively, Hux pulls back, surprised by the action.

“What are you doing?” Hux hisses.

“Seeking a kiss from my betrothed,” Ren says. His voice sounds somewhat confused. Of course, he must be unused to rejection, prince that he is. Hux clenches his jaw. “Kiss me.”

“I won’t,” Hux replies. He leans further away, in anticipation of Ren trying again.

Ren’s lip curls up in a snarl. “You’re my _betrothed_.”

“Yes, but I’m not your _husband_ – not yet.”

Ren scowls, eyes raking the length of Hux’s body. “So. It’s modesty, then.”

“Yes, modesty,” Hux fibs. If Ren would rather hear that Hux is being modest than the truth about Hux’s disgust, then Hux will let him hear it. “I will kiss you on our wedding day, my lord – not before.”

Ren stands from the bench in a flurry of dark fabric. Hux feels something odd in the air, like static electricity, but hot and surging. “Haughty as ever, Hux. I’ll let you have your way today. On our wedding day, I’ll have mine.”

Hux watches him go until he’s out of sight around the corner of some hedges, taking the uncomfortable electric feeling away with him. When he is once again alone, Hux shivers. _It was a close call, dodging that kiss,_ he thinks. Hux isn’t sure he will be able to dodge it a second time.

 

~*~

 

Hux has been with the tailor again this morning. The selection of clothing is, obnoxiously, still white. And Hux really doesn’t like that tailor. Hux had insisted once again that he not be forced to wear white, and the tailor had told him, smugly, “Prince Ben insisted on the white. And Queen Leia…”

“Yes, yes, alright,” Hux had said, and stood still and let the tailor pin the garments to fit his body.

Hux is taking a break from that insufferable tailor now. He has every mind to go for a short walk in the gardens – not more than fifteen minutes, or he’ll catch some sunburn. The halls are simply too confining for Hux to work out his frustrations on a walk, and – Hux feels someone catch him by his elbow, their grip firm, perhaps a little too much so.

“Come with me,” his father’s voice mutters, and Hux lets himself be led through the halls, unsure of what sort of conversation is ahead of him but acutely aware that it can’t be anything good.

His father leads him outside, into the gardens. Not a word is spoken until they’ve walked for several minutes and come upon an empty section of the parterre. The whole business doesn’t quite have Hux panicked, but he is Hux wondering what sort of treachery his father is about to suggest, if they need such privacy.

“Listen to me, child,” says his father. Hux has always been “child” to him, though he calls Khyden and Elyn by their names now and then. He has always suspected that it is because they share a name, and admonishing someone – for Hux’s father is always admonishing, never praising – with your own name must be disconcerting, and Hux’s father tends to avoid such discomfort. “You need to understand your place.”

“My place?” Hux repeats.

“Yes, your _place_.” His father is scowling, wrinkles of age deepening in his forehead and the lines around his mouth. “You are to be an _exemplary_ spouse, do you understand me? No more of this foolishness, being obstreperous to the Prince.”

“Father, I would never dream of – ”

“I heard about the tone of your _conversation_ with the prince yesterday,” his father warns. “The whole Palace did. The Prince should not have to stand for your insolence.”

Hux thinks of yesterday, when he had refused Ren a kiss, and keeps his mouth firmly closed. He knows better than to argue with his father.

“You will do whatever he asks of you, from now on,” his father insists. “On your wedding night most especially. Be obedient. Do not argue. He can divorce you as easily as he can marry you – easier, even. You will ruin everything we have been building for twenty-five years, child.”

“Father, I – ”

“Consider these orders. _Strict_ orders.”

Hux holds his father’s eye contact, but tries not to look defiant. “Yes, sir.”

“I am glad you understand,” his father says. “And don’t be late to the rehearsal tomorrow.” He turns on his heel and strides back towards the house, leaving Hux to stew in the gardens.

It is a while before Hux realizes the hour is getting late. He’s supposed to have an early dinner with his family. With a sigh Hux rises from the bench.

Hux finds his sister and mother in his parents’ room. They are dressed for dinner already, though this meal will just be taken here, away from anyone who would be seeing their pretty outfits.

“Where’s Father?” Hux asks.

“He’s having dinner with the King and Queen,” Elyn says.

“I see,” Hux says. Brown-nosing, Hux has no doubt, under the guise of working out final details of this wedding and the alliance by marriage that will follow.

They eat in relative silence. The three of them are given much more to introversion and always have been. Khyden and Hux’s father have always been the ones to fill up a dinner with conversation, however unpleasant that conversation may be. Hux is glad for the silence. He’s had enough of wedding talk, especially after his father’s warning this afternoon.

Hux doesn’t think he owes the quiet simply to their personalities. He watches his mother pick through her food, hardly eating any of it, fork trembling in her fingers. She glances up at him now and then, something sad in her eyes. Elyn looks worried when she and Hux exchange a glance.

When Hux has cleared his plate, his mother sets her fork down with a clatter.

“Is… something wrong, mother?” Hux asks.

“Be obedient,” his mother says, her voice wavering, verging on frightened. “Be obedient for him. Do whatever you’re told. None of us can afford – ”

“Mother!” Elyn protests. Hux hushes her with a gentle hand on her arm.

“I know, Mother,” Hux says. “I know my duty. Father reminded me of it as well.”

Elyn frowns. Hux is glad that she is not the firstborn. Hux wouldn’t wish his situation on her.

“I’ll marry him,” Hux says, taking his mother’s hands in his. “I’ll be a good husband. I won’t ruin all we’ve worked for.”

_Not intentionally, anyway,_ Hux thinks. He thinks for an instant of their forthcoming wedding night, and suppresses a shudder.

 

~*~

 

Hux sets his fork primly on his plate. It has been yet another day of meaningless tasks – tastings and fittings that Hux is entirely unsuited for and therefore very impatient with. If he tries another one of these prospective appetizers, he’ll vomit. Half of them have been unpalatable, and the other half have been so rich that they’re now sitting heavy on his tongue and in his stomach. Hux is still unable to comprehend how he’ll eat any of this at the reception.

“Where is my fiancé today?” Hux asks venomously.

“He’s – training, sir,” says one of the guards. This particular man is one Hux recognizes, with his dark skin. It seems that he’s been assigned to Hux’s detail, considering how often Hux finds this particular guard trailing him. Hux cannot say he’s fond of him.

“Training,” Hux repeats.

“Yes, sir,” the guard says. “It’s his job, as the Master of the Knights of Ren, to – ”

“So,” Hux says, narrowing his eyes as he fixes them on the guard’s face. “ _He_ is allowed to do _his_ job, while _I_ have been stolen away from my ship and my command, unable to do _my_ job, and forced to taste _appetizers_ for _hours_.”

The guard’s gaze shifts nervously around the room, looking for someone who might rescue him from Hux’s scrutiny. He’ll find no one. Hux can see that the cook and his assistants are frozen in place with fear.

“What is your name?” Hux asks the guard, his eyes narrowing

“Finn, sir – ”

“ _Finn_ ,” Hux sneers, his mouth widening into a vicious snarl. “Why don’t _you_ go and inform your Queen that I’m _finished_ with these tasks – for today, and for the remainder of my time here.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. Get out of my sight.”

Finn hardly remembers to give Hux a sharp salute before scrambling out the door. Hux rounds on the cook next.

“These are unacceptable,” Hux says, pushing a plate with the remainder of a sampling of miniature spinach tarts away from himself. “They’re dry, to start with, and under-salted. It seems to be a chronic problem with you. Now, I don’t want you to get that criticism under your skin and attempt to compensate. I’m sure you’d fuck it up and over-salt, which I believe would, somehow, be worse. In fact, why don’t you just provide a salt shaker on the tray with anything you serve? After all, I’m certain that any idiot off the street could season this food better than you could. Well? Say something for yourself!”

The cook seems frozen in the spot, unable to even open his mouth to defend himself. Hux’s impatience overcomes him and he stands, the scraping of the feet of his chair on the floor as loud as a gunshot in the shocked-silent room. With a derisive snort, Hux storms from the room, leaving the cook and his assistants alone with their shame.

Hux stalks the hallways of the Palace as he heads back towards his rooms. He’s in a foul mood – even fouler than previous days. Hux installs himself in his room, sitting at a chair by the window – the curtains still drawn, for he refuses to open them and let in that unforgiving Corellian sunlight – and broods.

This whole wedding is a farce. Hux can’t see the point of all this grandiose celebration. Hux’s life as he knows it is ending. He wants to be in mourning for the loss of his freedom, not choosing icing flavors for all of his waking hours. Hux only wants to get this wedding out of the way, and the honeymoon as well, and then he can disappear out of all of this and get back to his ship and then refuse to take shore leave to see his husband for the rest of his life.

Hux is startled out of his thoughts by the door bursting open

“Hux,” says a loud voice, accompanied by a hulking, dark figure striding into his rooms.

“Lord Ren,” Hux says, his voice breathy with surprise and outrage.

Ren comes to a halt inches in front of Hux. He looms – when _isn’t_ he looming – and frowns, obviously displeased. Hux can’t imagine what he’s done to get himself in trouble with his fiancé; though he doesn’t plan on changing his behavior, whatever it was.

“Your guard came to me with a story about you refusing to perform your duties.”

“My _duties_ are a farce,” Hux snaps. “I’m hardly essential. Any idiot could plan a wedding – you’re just trying to keep me busy with trivial nonsense.”

“You’re terrorizing the help,” Ren barks.

“The ‘ _help’_ is the furthest thing from _helpful_ that I can imagine,” Hux says. He studies Ren’s frowning face coolly. “We don’t tolerate this kind of sloppiness in the Order.”

“This isn’t the Order.”

“I am _painfully_ aware of that.”

“The wedding is _tomorrow,_ ” Ren hisses.

“Yes, I’m also painfully aware of _that_. It’s why your ‘ _help’_ needs to work harder.”

“ _I_ will see to it that they are working to the fullest of their abilities,” Ren says. “And you – you are _not_ allowed to shirk your duties. You are _temporarily_ off the hook for your outburst with the cook, but I won’t tolerate more insolence. I will see you at the rehearsal and dinner tonight, and you’ll behave.”

The last bit sounds more like a warning than a promise. Hux sniffs. “I’m not a child. I don’t need to be told to _behave_.”

“Apparently,” Ren says, “you do. Rehearsal, tonight.”

With that, Ren turns on his heel and sweeps out of the room, leaving Hux fuming. Well, regardless of Ren’s threats, Hux won’t return to his duties today. The cook is hopeless, the tailor is busy with finishing touches, the cake has already been made and is being decorated, and the hall where they’ll be married and the garden where they’ll have the reception are already decorated in preparation for tomorrow. Hux paces his room several times before deciding to settle down and do something he finds actually useful: work for the Order.

Hux is blessedly glad when no one comes to bother him for hours, not even to remind him about the rehearsal dinner. Hux sets down his data pad, satisfied with the amount of paperwork he’d completed, half an hour before he’s supposed to be present for the dinner.

Hux begins to dress, in a formal suit for the occasion, something he’d had tailored for himself years ago when he still wore formal outfits other than his parade uniform. It’s been so long since he wore this that he is forgetting how to tie the bow tie that goes around his neck. Hux is struggling with an unraveling knot for the fourth time when there’s a knock at his door.

“Brendol?” Elyn calls as she pushes open the door. She’s in a cream-colored gown that very nearly matches her skin, with a gold necklace that Hux recognizes as their mother’s around her neck.

“Is that what you’re planning to wear tomorrow as well?” Hux asks.

“Of course not,” she says, “this is only a rehearsal dinner. You’re not wearing _your_ outfit for tomorrow, are you?”

Hux ignores that jab. “You look pretty in this.”

“I’ll look pretty in what I wear tomorrow. Don’t distract me. I hear you’ve had a… rough day.”

“It hasn’t been _rough_ ,” Hux says. He feels his voice take on a particularly peevish tone, but he can’t keep himself from it, even for Elyn’s sake. “Ren is just – insufferable. I’m being forced day in and day out to taste horrible appetizers while he’s off somewhere, playing at swords. And he has the gall – he told me to stop terrorizing the help!”

Hux has been struggling with his bow tie during his rant, and gives up with a huff. Elyn steps closer to help him with it.

“Well, Brendol…” she says, “have you tried not terrorizing the help?”

Hux glowers down at her. “I do not _terrorize_ ,” he says indignantly.

Elyn grimaces as she tugs the wings of his tie, indicating the opposite.

“Oh, _please_ ,” Hux says.

“It’s only for one more day,” Elyn offers.

“Yes, and then I have to be locked in some unfamiliar manor with him for a full two weeks. The wedding being over isn’t the end to my problems.”

“You won’t be locked in.”

“Allow me _one_ metaphor.”

Elyn shrugs. She smooths the tie down a little with her hand and steps back.

“I really don’t know why you complain so much,” Elyn says. “You’re marrying a prince tomorrow. You’ll _be_ a prince tomorrow. And here you are, upset about appetizers.”

“A _duke,_ actually _,_ ” Hux scoffs. “His title doesn’t much matter to me, anyway. I’m not fond of him, and he’s not exactly a knight in shining armor.”

“He _is_ a knight. We don’t all get to have exactly the things we want, you know. And it’s not like this marriage is a surprise.”

Hux pauses, staring at his sister. “When did you get so – ”

“Wise? Must have been when you left, since I see you took all the stupid with you.”

“We have the rehearsal,” Hux reminds her.

Hux and Elyn head to the rehearsal together, her arm looped in his. The rehearsal is held in the hall where Hux and Ren are to be married in a few short days. It’s decorated already, banners of red and purple and gold hung between tall white marble pillars, hundreds of chairs arranged in neat rows with an aisle down the middle run with soft red fabric. Ren and his half of the wedding party are already seated in the front row of chairs, murmuring to each other in this space that is far too open for a small gathering. Ren has his father and mother, of course, and Snoke as well.

“Where is Luke?” Ren is asking his mother.

“He’ll arrive soon, Ben,” Leia replies. “I promise.”

Ren’s eyebrows are knit and his expression is sullen when he turns to face Hux as Hux strides up the aisle with his sister. Hux turns his gaze away and guides Elyn towards the other side of the aisle, where Hux’s father and mother and brother are already sitting.

The rehearsal is mainly a description of policies, the ins and outs of the ceremony, a rundown of what to expect and what to do in case something goes wrong, a lecture on tradition. Hux listens to officials prattle on about the importance of the ceremony, of the titles Hux will receive, of Hux’s responsibilities to the kingdom once he and Ren are married. All of it is more work for Hux, he thinks. He may need to amend his five-year plan to achieve the rank of General to six years, or perhaps longer, if he is to be expected to govern as well as run a military.

At the last portion of the rehearsal Hux and Ren are made to stand at the altar, where they will stand on their wedding day. They face each other wordlessly, Ren’s dour expression glowering down at him and Hux glaring right back. The officiant of the marriage is a tiny, elderly Sullustan. He hardly comes up to Hux’s thigh, and though he seems kindly, Hux still doesn’t like his wide, black eyes.

 “Now, your vows,” says the officiant. His words snap Hux out of his brooding. “Traditional Correlian vows – ” Hux tries not to look skeptical at the Sullustan’s supposed knowledge of traditional Correlian anything, “ – are short and simple, but a single sentence. ‘I do take him for my partner, in this life and all others.’”

Hux repeats the sentence in his head a couple of times, committing it to memory. The vows are foreign to him, much more complex than the simple “I do,” of Arkanis’ wedding traditions. Ren looks bored.

“And then,” says the officiant, “you will seal the union with a kiss.”

Ren leans forward, seeking a kiss. Hux pulls back.

Ren frowns. “You can’t spare a kiss for your husband?”

“No,” Hux says. “You’re not my husband yet.”

“You won’t kiss me, not even for appearances,” Ren hisses, with a glance toward their onlooking family members. “What kind of miserable marriage are you intending for this to be?”

“I can’t speak to how miserable you’ll find the marriage,” Hux says coolly. “I am only intending to get through this wedding.”

Ren sneers and leans in close to Hux. For a panicked moment, Hux thinks he will steal a kiss, against Hux’s wishes. But Ren just presses a swift kiss to Hux’s cheek, and then steps away.

“Are we through?” Hux asks.

“Yes,” Ren says. He looks down his nose at Hux, who has obviously displeased him. “Remember that you’ll be crowned tomorrow, following the sealing of the union. But for now, you’re free to get out of my sight.”

Hux sniffs, turns on his heel away from Ren, and stalks down the long aisle to the doors of the hall.

“Rings will be exchanged at the reception!” the officiant shouts helpfully at him as Hux sweeps out of the room.

Hux has an hour or so to kill until the rehearsal dinner, and he uses it to fall into his bed and stay there, unmoving.

_I do take him for my partner, in this life and all others._

He’s getting married tomorrow, to a man who has hardly been kind to him. Hux isn’t sure what he’ll do, alone with Ren for two weeks, expected to pleasure him. Hux picks acerbically at his cuticles with his nails, a disgusting and obnoxious habit of his that he has been trying to cut out by always wearing his gloves with his uniform. But here, on Corellia and sans uniform or gloves, he’s back to picking his fingers bloody.

_I do take him for my partner, in this life and all others._

Hux thinks of other men, who get to propose to the person they want to spend their life with, or who get proposed to, asked to say yes instead of told to. He thinks of them jealously, but with the resignation that those things aren’t for him. _Love_ isn’t for him. He’s never really believed in it. He has believed in doing his duty, and that duty is and always has been Kylo Ren.

_I do take him…_

Five minutes until dinner – and it won’t do to be late. Hux finds way to of the smaller halls, already decorated for the reception, which will be held here. The room is already half-full of the wedding party. Han and Leia sit towards one end of the long table at the middle of the room, and Hux’s family on the opposite end. It’s not very much in the spirit of such a dinner, but then, it is entirely typical behavior of the Hux family.

Hux catches sight of Ren and the empty seat to Ren’s right, and steels himself to join his fiancé.

“Hux,” Ren says by way of acknowledgement as Hux sits down. He and Ren are sitting at the center of one side of the long table, the center of attention. Hux has a vision of himself doing this all over again tomorrow, and in some hideous white outfit, and he has the strong urge to leave and lock himself in his rooms and refuse to appear at this dinner or the wedding tomorrow.

“My lord,” Hux answers, settling into his chair.

Hux glances around the table, taking stock of the assembled guests. Their families and various friends are separated from each other, an invisible line bisecting the table like the border of a country.

Hux eyes a man he’s never seen before, in a plain brown cloak with shaggy gray hair and a matching beard, who has Queen Leia engaged in conversation. No explanation of his presence is forthcoming from anyone, and so Hux leans over to Ren.

“Who is that man?” Hux asks, blanching at having to speak to his fiancé. “That’s hardly reasonable attire for a formal event.”

“He’s my uncle,” Ren says. Something dark passes over Ren’s face. Hux leans away from him slightly, unsure if that anger is directed at himself for Hux’s comment about his uncle’s style of dress, or at the uncle himself. “Luke.”

“On your father’s…?”

“My mother’s. They’re twins.”

“Really?” Hux doesn’t see much resemblance. Perhaps under that shaggy beard they share a jawline. “Where has he been?”

“Who knows.”

Hux senses more there than is being told. “And… the Wookiee?” Hux asks, pointing to the seven-foot-tall beast seated on Han’s right.

“That’s Chewbacca,” Ren says simply. Hux waits for further explanation, but none is forthcoming. Hux shrugs a shoulder and sits straight in his chair once more.

Dinner is served, a menu much different than the one that will be served at the reception, which Hux thinks is a welcome change. He’s thinking about not eating at the reception at all – if he has to taste that lemon-seasoned meat concoction of the cook’s one more time, he thinks he’ll revolt. Hux listens to the chatter around them as he pushes some type of pan-fried root vegetable around his plate.

“Of course, Master,” Ren is saying graciously to the wrinkled old man Hux had met several days ago – Snoke, that was the name. Hux raises his eyebrows. He hadn’t believed Snoke when he’d said he was Ren’s master, but here Ren is, referring to him as such. Something about this old man bothers Hux, though he can’t put his finger on it.

“Pardon me,” Hux says, leaning around Ren to look at Snoke. “What _exactly_ is it that you’re the master _of?_ ”

Before Snoke has the chance to speak, Ren turns his head and snarls at Hux. “Hux,” he says forcefully. “I won’t have you being rude at my table.”

Hux snaps his mouth shut. He wants to protest, tell Ren that this wedding is his as much as Ren’s, and therefore so is this table, but he holds his tongue. “I apologize, my lord. I was merely interested.”

The dinner seems to drag on. Their families and associated family friends seem to be having a good time, but Hux isn’t, and Ren doesn’t seem to be, either. They hardly say a word to each other for the whole evening.

“I’m going to turn in for the night,” Hux mutters to Ren as he sets down his fork next to the half-eaten dessert on his plate

“I’ll walk you to your rooms,” Ren replies.

Hux stands from the table, ignoring the way his face flushes under the knowing glances of those guests who still remain at the table. Well, they _imagine_ that they’re knowing. If they’re imagining anything at all other than Hux closing his bedroom door on Ren and spending the night alone, then they’re wrong.

Hux and Ren walk through the halls in silence. Ren accompanies him directly to the door of his bedroom. Hux steps through the door gratefully, eager to leave Ren behind.

“Good night, my lord,” Hux says, and moves to shut the door.

“Good night, Hux,” Ren says. “I will see you in the morning.”

Hux can only manage a nod through the twist of fear in his stomach. He disappears into his room, shutting the door and blocking Ren out of his sight. He is not so lucky in blocking Ren out of his mind.

 

~*~

 

Hux stands stiller than a mannequin on the morning of his wedding while the stylists groom his hair and tuck in his undershirt and button dozens of buttons on his outfit. His wedding garments are still all in white, trimmed with gold. Hux had been unsuccessful in talking them out of it, especially with Ren’s insistence, against his own wishes. The garments still undoubtedly wash him out, and it is still a mistake to dress him in virgin white when he is anything but. Thankfully, the outfit is forgivably similar in cut to his military uniform – this was Hux’s own doing, having carefully rejected every design that he deemed unbecoming, and ending up with a style that is thankfully reminiscent of his parade blacks, which he still wishes he was wearing at the moment. He will at least be allowed to pin his decorations and insignias to his breast, though he is not being allowed to dress himself.

One girl with particularly mousy features – a short, thin snout; large, round ears poking up through her dark, curly hair; a long tail trailing below the hem of her dress – has had to stand on a step stool to make herself tall enough to painstakingly comb Hux’s hair. She is combing it farther forward than he usually does, being generally accustomed to brushing it back at a severe angle and holding it in place with product, but he lets her do her work. The hairstyle will be for one day, and then he can style it however he wishes again. He has given up so much of himself already for this day that the way his hair is combed is hardly going to make a difference.

The mouse girl has a strip of fabric in her hands now, deep red with gold accents – a sash. Hux bends low to allow her to drape it over his shoulders and across his chest. The red, at least, is a blessing, a decent counterpoint to the hated white outfit. The red of the sash may be Hux’s saving grace.

A Twi’lek attendant with bright green skin holds out a small box to him: it’s his own, and it’s full of his decorations. Awash in relief Hux takes the box from her and turns to the full-length mirror that had been brought into the room sometime before Hux had entered it.

Hux takes his time pinning his decorations on. The routine of it feels good, familiar, though he avoids looking at himself in the mirror except to stare at his breast where he pins the medals and bars and insignias. When he has finished with the last of them, he finally looks up and studies his appearance.

It’s not terrible. The red of the sash mitigates some of the effect of the white, and his face looks different with his hair like this, but the overall result is better than he expected.

“You look very handsome, my lord,” comments one stylist.

“Stunning,” agrees another.

“Prince Ben will – ”

“I don’t want to hear about him,” Hux interrupts. “How long until this wedding starts?”

“Fifteen minutes, my lord.”

Hux clenches his jaw. He isn’t used to that title – _my lord_. It sounds strange. He’d rather have ‘Major General,’ especially since he isn’t married to Ren just yet. Hux sighs. He feels trapped, like an animal who has lived his whole life in a cage, never knowing how to open it until this moment, as he’s watching his keeper put a padlock on the door.

There’s a knock on the door of the parlor that is serving as a dressing room. Hux’s father strides in, dressed in a sharp black suit – everyone is being allowed to wear black except Hux himself, it seems – and Hux’s attendants part like water at the prow of Hux Sr.’s considerable presence.

“Child,” says his father. Hux acknowledges him with a curt nod. “The day has finally come.”

“Yes,” Hux says. “I suppose it has.”

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. This fiancé of yours has delayed our plans by more than five years, and his parents have only enabled him. It’s about time we finally seal this union.”

Hux’s life is a business transaction, he knows. His marriage is a political plot, and all of it orchestrated by this man. Hux stands at attention in front of his father, his hands at his sides and his spine straight.

“You _will_ make the Order proud,” his father says. The way he says it implies no room for argument. Not a belief in Hux, but an order.

“Yes, Father,” Hux says.

Hux’s father leans in, and for a surreal moment, Hux thinks his father is going to hug him. It would have been the first time in Hux’s memory, had his father not instead gripped his biceps and leaned in to speak in Hux’s ear, whispering, “ _Do not fuck this up._ ”

“Yes, Father,” Hux croaks, his mouth dry with sudden apprehension. His father releases him and steps away, but the memory of his fingers gripping Hux’s arms lingers. His father excuses himself from the room with a reminder to Hux that he will see Hux at the ceremony – that he will be watching.

“Well,” Hux says aloud when his father has left. He is talking more to himself than to any of his assembled attendants.

“You’ll do just fine, my lord,” squeaks the mouse girl.

“Oh yes, very fine indeed,” says another attendant.

Hux holds up his hand for silence, and the attendants acquiesce.

The next ten minutes are the longest of Hux’s life. When he is at last led out of the room and through the halls of the palace, even the short walk to the main hall feels like a long-awaited reprieve. There’s music playing inside the hall already, and Hux knows that he has been led here just after Ren will have entered the hall. He’s probably striding up the aisle now, and he’ll be waiting for Hux at the altar.

Hux hears a shift in the music.

“It’s time to enter now,” says the mouse stylist. Her kind smile does nothing to reassure him before he steps through the wide double doors and into the main hall.

Hux saw the decoration of this place yesterday, but it is more impressive – and more imposing – when the seats that sat empty yesterday are filled with bodies of all sizes and species. There is a low murmur of voices, and Hux tries not to think about how they’ll be commenting on his appearance. Whether their opinions of his look are good or bad, Hux doesn’t want to know them.

At the very least Hux does not have to be walked down the aisle and given away by his father, the way a woman on Arkanis might have expected to be. With a deep breath he walks of his own power down the aisle, fixing his gaze on the officiant instead of on the dark shadow of his husband-to-be. Hux moves slowly, hoping for his motion to look like gravitas instead of apprehension.

Hux gets the sense that Ren is trying to catch his eye, but Hux doesn’t allow it until he’s climbed the few steps to the altar and turned to face Ren. When Hux does meet Ren’s eye, his gaze is level, doing his best to hide his panic.

Ren rakes his eyes over Hux’s frame, taking in the sight of him in his wedding garments.

After an instant that seems to stretch to hours under Ren’s gaze, Ren holds out his hand in Hux’s direction. Hux is supposed to take it, he knows. He hesitates for a moment, his arms feeling as heavy as lead. Somehow he is able to motivate them to move and to take Ren’s hand in one of his own.

“We are gathered to unite these two in marriage,” begins the officiant.

Hux remembers what Elyn had told him, about getting used to Ren’s face. He ought to have tried harder this past week to get used to it before he had to stand here in front of everyone and pretend to have done it. Hux studies the moles which dot his face unevenly, and the lopsided slant of his jaw, and his too-long face. Something he could get used to, perhaps. But not something he believes he could come to love.

Ren holds his hand at the level of their waists, Hux’s fingers clasped gently, elegantly, in Ren’s hand. Hux is reminded of the first time he met Ren – as an adult, anyway, merely a week ago – and Ren tried to kiss his hand. Hux swallows against his dry mouth and realizes that he will have to allow Kylo so much more than that soon. A full kiss, on the mouth, in front of half the galaxy, and after that…

Hux glances to his left, towards the assembled wedding guests. Their families are sitting in the very front row. Hux’s mother looks teary, but his father’s face is a mask. The look fills Hux with dread, as if he is being watched by someone who will be in charge of his punishment as he misbehaves. The officiant is speaking, prattling on about the importance of respect and commitment and compromise in a marriage. Hux is grateful the speech doesn’t mention anything about love. It would have felt disingenuous at best, to stand here and agree to love Ren. At worst, Hux might have run screaming from the hall.

Hux sucks in a deep breath and refocuses on the ceremony at just the right time. The officiant is turned towards Ren, looking as if he has never been happier than he is at this moment, marrying the two of them together.

“Ben Organa Solo, Crown Prince of Corellia and the Core Worlds, Lord Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, and heir to the Skywalker lineage, do you take this man before you as your husband?”

Ren’s eyes are fixed on Hux’s, burning with something – passion or excitement, maybe, but Hux in his terrified state is only seeing malice. “I do take him for my partner, in this life and all others,” Ren says.

Hux feels a soft squeeze on his fingers. Ren’s face is mostly solemn, but a smile plays at the corners of his lips and his eyes – Hux has decided what they are now – are triumphant. Hux swallows.

The officiant turns his big, droopy eyes on Hux. “Brendol Hux, the Third, Major General of the First Order, do you take this man before you as your husband?”

“I…” Hux breathes, unable to stop the unfortunate tremor of his voice, “I do take… I do take him for my partner, i-in this life and all others.”

Ren is smiling proper now, his bared teeth seeming wolf-like to Hux’s panicked mind. Hux’s heart thuds in his chest, so loud he’s certain Ren can hear it.

“Then may the union be sealed.”

That’s their cue, and Hux wishes he’d had a little more time to lick his lips and steel himself mentally after saying his vows, but Ren is leaning in and Hux has no choice but to let Ren’s lips catch his own.

It’s not a bad kiss. Ren’s lips are warm and soft and not too wet, and there is precious little tongue involved, something Hux appreciates immensely. Yet Hux’s gut twists inside him, making him sick with the thought that all of this is real now, and legally binding. Hux is a married man.

Ren pulls away first. There is a young boy at their side, holding out a plush red pillow upon which a simple gold circlet is resting. Hux knows it’s for him. He watches Ren pick up the circlet, and then hold it in both hands.

“Brendol Hux Organa,” says the officiant. “You are hereby granted the title of Duke of Corellia and the Core Worlds, as befits your marriage.”

Hux hardly hears the officiant’s words as he tips his head forward towards Ren. Ren places the circlet lightly atop Hux’s hair, the metal settling with its strange weight on Hux’s head. Rings will be exchanged in private later, as per Corellian tradition, but Hux has been crowned in front of everyone.

When the crown has settled, Hux and Ren turn towards the assembled wedding guests. Hux’s right hand is still clasped in Ren’s left. They stand together for a moment. There is applause as the wedding guests admire and congratulate them. Ren takes the first steps down the stairs of the altar, and Hux follows him. They stride back up the aisle together and out of the hall. The doors shut behind them to give them momentary privacy.

“So,” Ren says. “We are married now.”

Hux can only nod. They are approached by their families first, and the two of them separate for a moment, knowing they will join each other at the table for the reception soon.

Elyn gives him a long, tight hug, and so does his mother. Even Khyden mutters a forced “Congratulations.” Hux’s father doesn’t say a word, nor does he offer a hand outstretched for Hux’s or for a pat on the shoulder, not a single sign of his gratitude for his son doing his bidding.

Peering around his family, Hux looks towards his new husband. Ren is receiving the pat on the back from his father that Hux had anticipated (hopelessly, fruitlessly) from his own father. Ren’s uncle is smiling widely through his beard. From this distance it’s difficult to say, but Queen Leia’s eyes look a little wet. Hux has the sudden urge to excuse himself to the bathroom, and to stay there for the rest of the evening. His feet stay rooted to the carpet of the hallway.

Guests – those who have been invited to the reception – filter past them, offering congratulations in passing as they are ushered to the dining hall. The guests will all be seated first, and then Hux and Ren’s families, and finally the newlyweds themselves.

As the hallway empties, Hux and Ren remain behind until they are the last ones standing in the hall.

“Hold my hand,” Ren says.

“No,” Hux replies.

Ren sneers. “It’s hardly for my own enjoyment,” he says. “Don’t you think a newly married couple ought to hold hands during their grand entrance to their own wedding reception?”

Hux grits his teeth and begrudgingly holds his hand out for Ren to take. He is glad their gloves still separate the skin of their palms as Ren’s broad hand wraps around Hux’s slim fingers.

The doors of the dining hall are pulled wide open, and Hux and Ren step inside together. There is applause from their assembled loved ones – the majority of whom belong to Ren – as they stride across the room to take their places at the center two seats of a long table.

The first order of business is exchanging rings. Now that they are seated next to each other, with only their families and closest friends present, the setting is deemed private enough for this meaningful – as it has been described to Hux – gesture of commitment.

Hux draws out his box first. He hadn’t picked the ring, merely approved it. The ring is simple. Hux doesn’t favor gaudy things, and though it’s not _his_ ring, he couldn’t look at some fat, ungainly gem on Ren’s finger for the rest of their lives, regardless of how little of that time Hux is intending to spend with Ren. The ring is gold with light etchings of thin bands running around its circumference, a large diamond at the center, and two smaller ones on either side of it. Ren holds his hand out imperially and lets Hux slip the ring onto his finger.

Once this is done, Ren produces his ringbox – a dark wood thing that opens to reveal deep purple velvet. Hux doesn’t get a good look at the ring until it is slipped onto his finger. When he finally examines it, Hux is surprised. The ring is solid gold, set with six small rubies, three on each side of a larger, sparkling diamond set deep into the band. The ring is elegant and simple. To his utter surprise, Hux _likes_ it.

There is soft applause once again from their audience. Champagne is brought to each guest in attendance. When everyone has a glass in hand, Ren turns toward Hux.

“To us,” Ren says simply.

“To us,” Hux replies, and taps the rim of his champagne flute against that of Ren’s. Hux drinks deeply from the champagne and shuts his eyes as he does so, not wanting to see the dozens of glasses raised to do the same.

After this meager toast there is a speech from Han, gruff and hurried, most likely in an attempt to mask emotion – his words are about gaining a son, mostly, and about marriage being about compromise and considering each other’s needs. Hux tries not to blanch at all of this. It wouldn’t do to look disgusted with his father-in-law the King’s toast to his son’s new marriage, with all of these people watching.

Hux’s own father delivers a speech that Hux is certain has greatly exaggerated his father’s actual opinion of him. He calls Hux a dutiful son, and says he is proud of the way Hux has carried on the family legacy, and hopes that his marriage with Ren will be a fruitful one. Hux hardly lets these comments scratch the surface of his psyche. This is the only time Hux has ever heard his father say he’s proud of Hux in any way – but of course, Hux’s father is proud of the _legacy,_ not Hux himself.

When Hux’s father has once again taken his seat after his toast, another person stands. Hux eyes Ren’s uncle suspiciously.

“When Ben was a young boy,” Luke begins, and Hux tries not to roll his eyes. Hux pays the story no attention as he glances around the table. Leia looks proud as Luke tells his story, and Han looks downright on the verge of tears. The Wookiee Chewbacca is groaning softly, appearing to agree here and there with Luke’s words.

“…I have reminded my nephew at every turn that the Force may work in mysterious ways, but what the Force wills shall be. It is our duty not to attempt to bend the Force to our will, but to be instruments of the Force.”

Hux glances sideways at Ren, trying to gauge Ren’s reaction to this nonsense. The look on Ren’s face is one of barely-concealed contempt. _Perfect,_ Hux thinks, _that makes two of us._

“It is my hope that Ben and Brendol will remember this through their married lives. I look forward to watching as your love grows in the Force.”

Hux wants to gag. As Luke takes his seat once more, Hux finds himself desperately hoping there won’t be any more toasts. Khyden, after all, hates him too much to say something at his wedding, and they’ve heard more than enough from Ren’s side.

When all the toasts are finished dinner is served. Hux barely touches the food, knowing its quality already, but keeps his champagne glass clutched in one hand for the rest of the evening.

“Come,” Ren says, standing. Hux eyes him. “We’re supposed to dance.”

Hux bristles, but doesn’t argue. He was told he would have to dance. That still doesn’t mean he’ll like it. He takes Ren’s hand and lets himself be led to a wide open space, designated as a dance floor.

There is a live band, but one decidedly orchestral in nature. Ren’s hand is large where it spreads across his waist. Up this close, it’s easy to tell just how much broader Ren is than Hux – his chest alone several inches wider, and to say nothing of his shoulders.

“I’m not much for dancing,” Hux says.

“Neither am I,” Ren replies. “It doesn’t need to be elegant. We just have to dance.”

_A prince with two left feet,_ Hux thinks. The music strikes up and Ren holds him just a little tighter as he begins to move, leading Hux in the dance. It’s a simple, lazy waltz, easy enough to follow if Hux lets himself focus on it. Ren’s technique is hardly perfect, but neither is Hux’s. Hux tries not to look at the circle of their friends and family watching them dance. It’s almost peaceful, swaying to the music like this, once he blocks out his surroundings.

The music eventually draws to a close, and Ren turns his head towards Hux. “You’ll dance with my mother next,” he whispers in Hux’s ear.

“Is she as poor of a dancer as you?” Hux says, a little hopefully.

“Oh no,” Ren says. “She’s excellent. Just follow her lead.”

They separate with the final note of the music. Hux turns towards Leia and holds his hand out for her where she is already crossing the floor towards him. Out of the corner of his eye, Hux can see Ren offering his hand to Hux’s mother.

“Brendol,” Leia greets him politely. Hux’s hand settles on her waist and his other holds her hand away from their bodies at the level of her shoulders.

“Your Highness,” Hux replies.

The music begins again, a different song this time, but still a waltz, and faster paced. Hux finds himself swept away by it when Leia begins moving.

“Not much of a dancer, are you, son?” Leia says. Hux swallows an objection to her calling him ‘son,’ a habit she must certainly have picked up from Han.

“Not really,” Hux admits.

Leia makes a noncommittal noise and continues dancing. As they turn, Hux can see Ren and his mother dancing, her tiny frame dwarfed by Ren’s imposing body. She looks slightly terrified when she locks eyes with her son.

“I expect that you’ll be a respectful and _exemplary_ member of our family,” Leia says, her tone as severe as ever. Hux jumps, pulled out of his focus on the dance steps.

“Of course, ma’am,” Hux says.

“Be good to my son. He can be irritable, but he is a good man. Devoted.”

_Devoted to what?_ Hux thinks. “Yes, ma’am.”

Leia’s grip on his shoulder tightens. Hux knows without any further words from her that she’ll be watching him closely for the rest of her life. She doesn’t release him until the dance is over

Hux sinks back into his seat at the table with a sigh. Ren takes his place at Hux’s side.

“How was it?” he asks.

“Exhausting,” Hux says. “She knows what she’s doing.”

“She always does.”

Cake is served, and guests filter back from the dancefloor to have their slices. Hux and Ren have the first bite of cake together, and for once Hux is glad that the traditions for this wedding have been Corellian and not Arkanian – on Arkanis, it would have been unthinkable for the two of them not to feed each other the first bite of cake. Hux lifts his fork to his own mouth and tries the cake, and watches the rest of their guests follow suit.

“Fondant,” Hux says bitterly after he swallows.

“Would you like me to have the baker’s head?” Ren says. Hux almost thinks he sees a smile playing at Ren’s full lips. “You may have it, as my first wedding present to you.”

Hux is very nearly touched by the offer, but he shakes his head and picks through his cake, eating the pastry out from under the fondant coating. Under the table, Hux flexes his right hand, getting himself used to the feeling of the ring circling his finger. It fits, of course, perfectly, but the weight and feel of it snug against his skin is foreign.

The reception drags on from early afternoon into the evening, and Hux loses track of how many glasses of champagne he’s had. Guests slowly begin to leave, until only their families and closest friends (the Wookiee among them) are remaining.

A servant slips into the hall, not one of the serving staff that have been circling all night. He slips through the room towards Hux and Ren.

“Time to go,” Ren murmurs, before the servant has made it close enough to them to speak.

“My lords,” says the servant. “Your ship is waiting.”

 

~*~

 

Hux is allowed time to change out of his wedding garments and into something more comfortable before they board the ship that will take them to Teryn, the planet – barely more than a large moon, really – that they will honeymoon on. Hux wears his military uniform, which is the clothing he is most used to, and which he feels most comfortable in. Ren eyes him dubiously when they meet at the shuttle.

“Your uniform?” Ren says. Ren has changed out of his wedding garb as well, back into his usual black ensemble, complete with cape. This time he also wears a heavy, dark cowl around his neck. Hux wants to taunt him about being afraid of being unused to the cold of space, but he knows he doesn’t exactly have the higher ground – Hux is wearing his greatcoat about his shoulders, the way he would aboard the _Augury_.

Hux chooses to ignore Ren’s question. He strides onto the ship without a word to him.

The interior of the ship is nothing spectacular. It’s clearly not built for luxury, but it is at least a step up from the military transport ships Hux is used to. There’s a pair of beds at the back – bunked, Hux notes. He wonders if Ren will want one, and if Ren will squabble with him for the top bunk, like a child. Hux prefers the bottom bunk anyway.

The ship shudders as it lifts off, and Hux sits primly on the padded bench in the ship’s small galley while they leave Corellia’s atmosphere. Ren doesn’t bother to sit and brace himself. He stalks the very short length of the ship, his only concession to the bumpy exit of the atmosphere a sturdy hand on the walls of the ship as he travels.

The smooth black of space is a relief by the time they’ve exited Corellia’s upper atmosphere. There are sounds from the cockpit as the pilot inputs the coordinates for their honeymoon planet.

“Jumping soon,” the pilot says. A minute later, and Hux feels the tug and jerk in his stomach of being pulled into hyperspace. The familiar sensation is almost soothing. Soon he’ll be lightyears away from Corellia. It’s just a pity he couldn’t leave Ren behind.

Once they’re safely in hyperspace, Hux stands from his seat. The flight to Teryn is several hours long, and unlike his trip to Corellia, Hux doesn’t much care about his appearance after he gets off this ship. After all, the only person who will be seeing him is his husband – whose opinion he doesn’t much care for either. He is still wobbly and drowsy from the champagne he’d consumed, at any rate. Hux retires to one of the beds at the back of the craft, and falls into a fitful sleep.

Hux is awoken by the sensation of their ship dropping out of hyperspace. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes or sitting up just yet. He knows they’ll have a planetary atmosphere to enter. Hux lies with his eyes shut while the ship shudders through to the planet’s surface.

“Hux,” Ren says when Hux feels the ship finally touches down on solid ground. “We’ve arrived.”

“I know that.”

Hux sits up on the bed, careful not to hit his head on the bunk above.

It’s nighttime when they emerge from the ship. They’ve landed in a wide, graveled circle at one side of a broad, dark lawn. The lawn has a sprawling mansion at its center. The building is cream-colored and beautifully maintained, lit with lights that line the pathways to the house and shine on its face. The house seems lush, its architecture of an older style but well taken care of. The grounds are kept perfectly neat, all the hedges trimmed and the grass cut short and flowers and trees arranged in perfect order. This seems like the exact kind of summer home a royal family would own, Hux thinks. A perfect place for their unfortunate honeymoon seclusion.

Ren steps out of the ship, his boots crunching on the gravel under his feet. He turns and extends a hand to help Hux down as well. Hux doesn’t take it. As if Hux needs help – he’s been in and out of vessels like this his entire life, and that won’t change just because he now has a husband who seems overly attached to the idea of chivalry. Hux lands nimbly on the ground with hardly a glance in Ren’s direction, and he feels Ren turn away in something like disappointment, though Hux cannot fathom why.

Ren and Hux stride across the grounds, leaving their bags in the transport to be brought in by the servants. The wide front doors are unlocked when they step up to them, and Ren strains to pull them open, heavy as they are. When the door is opened, Ren pauses, looking inside but not stepping in. Hux glances sideways at him.

“Tell me you’re not going to carry me across the dais,” he says.

Ren pauses for a moment. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

“My word,” Hux says impatiently, and steps into the house without him.

The inside of the house is lit in dim, golden light from the chandelier overhead and the fixtures that line the walls. The floor is white marble, stretching out in a wide-open foyer. There are open doors to other rooms on the first floor – a sitting room off to the left, a library directly across the room from the front door. Two wide, curving staircases bracket the foyer, leading up to a long, open hallway on the second floor, bordered by a metal railing on the nearer side.

“Typical,” Hux mutters under his breath.

“Hm?”

“Nothing.”

Ren leads the way upstairs, obviously intending to leave a more thorough exploration of the house for tomorrow. Ren turns left at the top of the stairs and heads straight for a room at the end of the long upstairs hall.

The master bedroom is enormous, with a lavish canopied king-size bed as its focal point. The furniture is all done in matching dark wood and navy upholstery, with gold trim at every edge. The cream-colored carpet under their feet is plush and warm. There’s a bathroom off the main room with a huge bathtub and a pair of sinks under a long mirror, and a den on the opposite side of the bedroom with a large fireplace, a pair of armchairs, and a long, comfortable-looking couch.

A butler brings their bags from the ship. The man is middle aged, greying at the temples but not elderly. Ren thanks him by name when he dismisses the butler, but Hux forgets the name instantly.

When the butler has shut the door behind himself, Hux turns to his luggage. He grips the handle of one, intending to haul it onto the bed to unpack it. When he turns towards the bed, Ren is already occupying it, sitting at the foot of it with his cloak and cowl removed and draped over one of the armchairs.

“Come, Hux,” Ren says. “We’ll unpack in the morning. It’s late.”

Hux sees the clear invitation to join Ren on the bed, and his heart begins to pound. He’d hoped for a little more time to settle in before he would be expected to perform his marital duties. Perhaps another glass of wine, now that he’s slept off what he had at the reception. After a moment’s hesitation Hux sits primly on the edge of the bed, leaving a respectable distance between himself and his husband.

“Hux,” says Ren, after a stretched, tense silence.

“My lord,” Hux replies, turning towards him.

“You can cease with that, you know,” Ren says. “We’re married now.”

As if Hux could forget.

Ren lifts a hand and strokes it lightly over Hux’s hair for a moment, as if admiring it. Hux’s skin prickles and he feels dread swelling in his stomach. Ren’s odd face looks tender, or as tender as it could ever be, as given to bitterness and anger as Ren seems to be. He wets his overlarge lips. The gesture feels like a nail in Hux’s coffin, a death sentence. Hux swallows and prepares to bear his fate.

Hux remembers Ren telling him, in a courtyard at the palace, _on our wedding day, I will have mine._ Ren’s arms loop around Hux’s waist and pull him close. His lips meet Hux’s, and this time the kiss is deeper by far than the one they had shared this morning at their wedding, that one small concession Hux had been able to bear. Ren’s lips are warm and plush and full and he kisses with purpose, but not with much experience. Hux kisses back only a little. If Hux guides this encounter, doing his duty as Ren’s husband might not be so bad, despite how loath Hux is to go through with it.

Hux is soon wrapped in Ren. Strong arms hold him close. Ren’s long, dark hair tickles his face. Ren’s scent and taste are everywhere. Ren’s hands work distractedly at Hux’s clothes as they kiss, starting with the buttons at Hux’s throat. Hux allows it, resisting a shiver.

It would have been easier, Hux thinks, to give a princess one night of tenderness and then end up with a child, months later, than it is to acquiesce to the desires of a man he loathes. Hux could have borne the assault on his personal tastes if the problem of an heir would have been solved by one night of lovemaking. But this – there will be no child, regardless of how well he bends to Ren’s will. He won’t betray his own standards, his own preferences, for this deplorable and fruitless union. 

Hux hears his father’s warning words in his head, feeling them like binders at his wrists. _You will do whatever he asks of you, on your wedding night most especially_. Hux pulls away and turns his head away from Ren, exposing the length of his neck, a long pale stretch of skin that Ren immediately presses kisses to, lips gentle as they trail from his jaw to his collarbone.

Hux sits perfectly still. He doesn’t reach for Ren, doesn’t hold him back or stroke his body or tangle his fingers in his hair. Responsiveness isn’t what Hux is for, anyway. His mother had said to _be obedient._ If he’s supposed to do this, he’s only expected to lie here and let Ren have his way. What should it matter that Hux isn’t returning Ren’s affections, the way he would with a partner he chose for himself?

Yet he doesn’t want this. He won’t act like he does. He doesn’t want this. Hux hears warning words in his head, but opens his mouth regardless.

“I wish you had been a princess,” Hux says.

Ren pulls away, the warmth and wetness of his mouth suddenly gone from Hux’s neck. Ren frowns, his blown pupils making his dark brown eyes nearly black, his shoulders tight with frustration and anger.

“Well, you have _me_ ,” Ren says.

“I don’t _want_ you.”

It’s not so much that he wants a princess, Hux thinks. It’s that he wants a different prince.

“So you won’t have me, then,” Ren asks. “On our wedding night, you won’t lie with me.”

“No,” Hux says. He looks Ren in the eyes, trying to gauge what reaction his refusal will illicit, and failing. “I won’t have you.”

“Fine,” Ren says, anger flaring, and Hux feels that electric heat again, the way he’d felt it in the gardens when he’d refused Ren’s kiss. Ren stands. For a very brief moment, Hux is afraid Ren might actually strike him. But the moment passes, and Ren turns his back on Hux. “Come,” Ren commands, and leaves the room with a dramatic flourish that Hux can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes at. 

Hux follows, reluctantly, as Ren leads him down a long hall. The door of every room they pass is closed. Hux wonders, vaguely, what each of them is. Another bedroom? Another bathroom? How many could be needed?

When Ren reaches a door at the end of the hall, he stops. He turns the handle, pushes the door open, sweeps inside. Hux trails after him. 

The room is large – not so large as the room they had been intending to share, but large enough. Easily four times the size of Hux’s quarters aboard his ship. Everything here is cream trimmed with gold, including the large, four-poster bed, complete with canopy.

“You’ll sleep here,” Ren says, with a gesture towards the bed. Hux doesn’t reply, only stares. He looks skeptically at Ren, then again at the bed.

“Really,” Hux asks. “That’s it, then? I sleep here and you sleep elsewhere, on our wedding night.”

“You said you won’t have me. There’s no point sleeping in the same bed, if that’s so.”

Hux eyes him disbelievingly. “You’re not going to force me into your bed.”

“Rape isn’t consummation,” Ren sneers. “And since consummation is our  _only goa_ _l_ , according to you, that isn’t the way to achieve it. Sleep well, _Hux_.”

Hux wonders if Ren calling him by his last name, even now that they are married and Hux no longer really owns that name, is supposed to wound him. The slam of the bedroom door behind Ren as he leaves disrupts Hux’s thoughts, then leaves him in silence.

 

~*~

 

Hux wakes late in the day. Or rather, he wakes early, and falls back to sleep and wakes again several times before his waking sticks. He feels groggy when he finally opens his eyes for good. Hux is not used to sleeping in. The room is filled with sunlight from the uncovered window – he hadn't noticed that the curtains weren't drawn last night when Ren put him in here. Hux draws the blankets up above his head and tries to block it out, but fails. Worse, he can't ignore the sick feeling in his gut that reminds him what he did last night. He displeased his husband. Though Ren only exiled him from the bed last night, Hux can only imagine that the punishment he'll suffer today will be far worse. Hux wonders if Ren will divorce him. He kicks himself mentally for hoping.

Hux rises from the bed and dresses in something fitting for wandering the house. There's some exploring to be done, after all. Hux has only seen the foyer, the hall, and the two bedrooms he's been in, and this mansion contains many more rooms than that.

Hux steps silently once he's in the hall. There's a door several feet down and to the right of his door at the end of the hall. Hux steps up to it and considers knocking. His own meekness confuses him. He may not have been in this house before, he thinks, but it's his own property now, as a member by marriage of the Royal Family Organa. Many things are his right, now – if Ren keeps him, at least. Hux barges into the room, chest puffing with his newfound confidence.

This door reveals another bedroom, furnished similarly to the other two but with more blues in the color scheme. He wonders who slept here, if anyone ever did. When Ren's family vacationed here, who did they bring? Surely it wasn't only Ren and his parents, or there would be no use for so many rooms. Servants would never be housed in quarters like this, after all. Hux pokes around in the room for a few minutes, exploring entirely empty drawers and picture frames long since stripped of their contents.

Hux explores the rest of the upstairs of the house, uncovering four more bedrooms and two bathrooms, as well as a large sitting room. None of them hold any interest for Hux. By the time he reaches the other end of the hall, the light streaming through the windows has taken on a decidedly noon-ish quality, rather than that of morning. The door at the end of the hall – Ren's room, the room that they would have shared had Hux just forced himself to stomach the intended events of the previous night – is cracked open, and the room is therefore obviously vacant. Hux wonders briefly where his husband has gotten off too, since he clearly has not gotten up as late as Hux did. Hux tells himself he will find Ren somewhere in this house, and even if he does not, he doesn't care where the man is, anyway.  

Hux descends the stairs and begins his explorations there. Off the wide open, marble-tiled foyer there’s a sitting room, decorated in much the same style as the rooms at the Palace. Hux looks it over, examining the intricacies of the décor, but soon finds himself bored with it.

He enters the next door around the perimeter of the foyer and finds it filled with books – actual, real, paper books. Several floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full. Hux is interested in some of them, especially the ones that have titles like old history books, and not the ones that appear to be novels, however magnificently they are bound. A collection of books like this is priceless, Hux knows. But then, if anyone would have a library like this full of expensive paper books, it would be the Royal Family Organa.

At the back of the library there is a door, and it leads to a small study, with a wide, dark, wooden desk and a few more bookshelves. Hux makes a note of it. The study looks like as good a place as any to spend some time. Maybe he can even get some work done while he’s here. He wonders if he can keep Ren out of this space or if Ren will simply do as he pleases and barge in anyway.

Hux leaves the study behind. He investigates the rest of the house and finds the kitchen, meeting a short, red-nosed cook who provides him with some breakfast, and several sitting rooms and drawing rooms. Nothing holds his interest so much as that study had.

Hux returns to the library, intending to head back to the study, which already feels like a sort of home base; it’s much more his style than the room he’d slept in. Something feels… odd, about that room. Not uncomfortable, exactly, but something he can’t put his finger on.

Hux finds the study occupied by another person when he walks in: a maid, by her outfit, and dusting off bookshelves with a hummed tune in her throat. She doesn’t notice him at first, but Hux doesn’t want her in here. She can go clean something else. The study is Hux’s territory, at least for today.

“You,” Hux says, and the maid turns with a small squeak. “Where is the butler? Tell him to fetch me a drink. Brandy.”

The maid swallows and nods furiously, then disappears from the room, leaving her duster behind on the floor. Hux installs himself at a cushy, leather-upholstered chair behind the desk.

The butler slips into the study several minutes later, a glass of brandy on the rocks in one hand.

“You called for me, my lord,” the butler said. “I’ve brought your drink, as you requested.”

The butler gently sets the glass in front of Hux at the desk. Hux picks the glass up and inhales the scent of the brandy.

“Where’s it from?”

“Highest quality Corellian brandy, my lord.”

Hux snorts at the mention of Corellia. “Do you have anything Sacorrian?”

“Yes – ”

“I’ll have that, for the next glass.”

Hux dismisses the butler and is left alone with his drink. The brandy isn’t bad, of course it isn’t – Corellia isn’t known for making bad alcohol, and it’s very fine indeed. But he doesn’t need the reminder of his fate in something as simple as the brandy he’s drinking to forget.

Hux occupies himself for the day, brooding and drinking. The butler returns at intervals to refresh his drink. The Sacorrian brandy isn’t bad either, but not quite as good as the Corellian. Hux drinks glass after glass of it anyway.

Hux tries several times to read one of the books, and it remains spread open in front of him on the desk all day. Hux finds himself too inebriated to focus on the words for long, and after a short bout of trying will lean back in the chair and lose himself in his thoughts, or else doze for a few minutes.

With nothing better to think about, Hux remembers past lovers he’s taken. Not all of them were marriage material – alright, none of them were. But there are several Hux thinks he would much rather have had than _Ren_. A dark-haired officer, smaller than Hux usually liked his men and ranks below Hux’s own, but something in him was almost _kind_ ; though perhaps timid is a better word for that one. Anyway, he’d sucked cock phenomenally, and Hux wouldn’t have minded being shackled to a mouth like that. For a while anyway. And there was another – a superior officer at the time, though Hux thinks he now outranks the man – with dark hair flecked with gray and a penchant for distracting Hux from his work and putting him to work in other ways. Marrying within the Order might have been nice, but he’s never been allowed to truly entertain the idea.

Hux stares at the ring on his finger. He won’t be in possession of it much longer. He wonders where Ren is, having not seen hide nor hair of him all day. Granted, Hux hasn’t moved from this chair in the study for hours, but Ren hasn’t come to find him. Perhaps he’s going to be set aside. After all, he did refuse Ren’s advances on their wedding night. His behavior had been unacceptable; at least, Hux would have found it unacceptable, were he the one with the power in the marriage and Ren the one rejecting him. Undoubtedly Ren has not come to find him because he has been busy all day making arrangements for their divorce. So recently united, so soon parted. The thought is bittersweet. Hux relishes the idea of no longer being bound to Ren, but knows such a thing would incur the wrath of his father – and the whole Order.

Yes, Ren will divorce him, without a doubt, and find some other high-ranking Order member’s son to torment, or else he’ll find another prince and abandon the Order altogether.

Before Hux knows it, the light filtering in from the solitary window has faded, replaced by the pink-orange of sunset and then by the dark of night. Hux has lost track of how much brandy he’s had. He couldn’t even appreciate it, after a couple of glasses. His senses are half-numb. Hux is dozing, waking now and then to think of calling for one last drink before bed, when he finishes this one, when he hears a voice from the main library.

“Hux, are you in here?”

Hux’s blood runs cold in his veins. He avoided Ren all day by locking himself in this study, and Hux had thought it was going well. Ren strides through the doorway of the study and stands before Hux before Hux has the chance to answer.

Ren surveys the scene before him – Hux with his top buttons unbuttoned, his socked feet propped on the desk in front of him, a half finished glass of brandy clutched in one hand.

“Have you been in here all day?” Ren asks. “Drinking?”

Hux fights back a hiccup. “Why should it matter? Where have _you_ been?”

“I’ve been training.”

“I do love a man who ignores his spouse in favor of the sword.”

“Ignores – _you’re_ lecturing _me_ about ignoring you,” Ren says, his eyes narrowing with fury, “when you were so cold last night?”

Hux shrugs. “So I’m a bad husband, too, then,” he says. “Go on. Divorce me. I know you will.”

“I won’t.”

Hux pauses, absorbing that, and then frowns. “You won’t?”

“No,” Ren sneers. “You’re mine, and I’ll keep you, no matter how disobedient you are. Or how stinking drunk you get to cope with your own mistakes.”

“I hope you didn’t mean that to be reassuring,” Hux says, eyeing him over the rim of his brandy glass.

“I meant it simply as the truth. We are married, and we will stay married.”

“Great,” Hux says. “Fantastic.”

“What is the matter with you?” Ren snarls. “Do you intend for this marriage to be miserable and loveless for the rest of our lives?”

“This is an arranged marriage,” Hux says coolly. “It doesn’t matter one single bit that it’s a loveless one.”

“It doesn’t have to be loveless.”

Hux pauses, fixes him with a withering stare, and takes another long drink of his brandy. When he has drained it, he smacks the empty glass down on the desk.

“You ought to at least try to enjoy it,” Ren says.

“ _This_ marriage? You want me to _enjoy_ it? How am I supposed to enjoy a man I was forced into marriage with?” Hux rails. He takes his feet down from the desk and sits upright in the chair – a more difficult task than he expected, with his head swimming with drink. “A man I barely know? A man I never had a choice about? A man who has been nothing but contrary to me since we met, properly met, as men, only _days_ ago? A man who is one day going to fuck my sister and force me to raise the resulting child with him?”

“I don’t have any intentions of,” Ren pauses, for only a small moment, as if unused to pronouncing the curse that comes next, “fucking your sister.”

“How do you propose we come about an heir, then?” Hux snaps. 

“Why are you so concerned with an heir?”

“That’s what a marriage is _for_ ,” Hux snaps. “So someone can pop out a little legitimate royal baby and the dynasty can continue. It’s all political, all of it.”

“Fine, then. Our marriage is a political alliance – you ought to do a better job of being an ally.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You just want me to play the part of the loyal and obedient housewife? You want me to be good and bend over and take your cock, is that it? That’s not the man you married, I’m sorry to say.”

“You’re drunk.”

“No shit,” Hux says, fixing his gaze as levelly on Ren as he can through the haze of alcohol.

“I won’t have these discussions with you while you’re like this. You need get to bed and sleep it off. I expect a better attitude tomorrow.”

“What I _need_ ,” Hux says, “is another drink.”

Ren opens his mouth to retort, but is interrupted by the creaking of the door of the study as it opens.

“My lords,” says the butler, peering into the room. “Do you require any further service?”

“Yes,” Ren says, turning away from Hux. “You are not to serve my husband any more alcohol. For the duration of our visit. That order is absolute.”

“Ren!” Hux complains, his outrage making his chest swell.

“That will be all,” Ren says to the butler. He turns his gaze – critical, weary, perhaps a little sad – on Hux for a moment. “Go to bed, Hux.”

With that, Ren sweeps out of the room, their conversation unfinished.

“My lord, do you require anything?”

“Yes. Another brandy. _Now._ ”

The butler hesitates. “My Lord Ren – your husband – commanded me not to – ”

“I know what my husband commanded,” Hux hisses. “Am I not now part of the Organa family? Am I not his equal in this marriage? Do as I say.”

“My lord Brendol – ”

“Do not,” Hux snarls, “use my first name. Get out of my sight.”

When the butler has disappeared, Hux’s hand is still lamentably empty of a drink. He squeezes it tightly, forming a fist that rests on the arm of the chair. He hears Ren’s voice in his head. _Go to bed, Hux._ Full of pity and disdain and sadness. He doesn’t want to give in to Ren’s request, but he doesn’t have anything better to do with himself. There’s no paperwork to file here. No projects to work on. No one, even, to play chess with, just to keep his mind occupied.

Hux broods for a few more minutes, then stands. He wobbles on his feet. He’s drunker than he thought, then – he supposes that’s what he gets for not standing up for hours. Hux plods out of the sitting room, keeping an eye on his unsteady feet through the spinning in his head, and climbs the stairs to the long hallway. Hux barely manages to strip himself out of his clothes before falling into bed. His last thought before he passes out for the night is of Ren, and how he should have known that drinking himself into belligerence would only make their situation together worse.

 

~*~

 

“Rise and shine, Hux.”

Hux’s eyes snap open, then squeeze shut at the early morning sun filtering into the room from the newly-opened curtains.

“What on earth,” Hux croaks. He needs water. His head is splitting. His mouth tastes like something has died in it. 

“It’s 0800,” Ren says. Hux groans and gathers the sheets tighter around his naked body and doesn’t think about how absurd it is to not want his own husband to see him bare. “I want you dressed by 0830.”

“Why?”

“Just get dressed. I certainly hope you don’t lie in bed all day like this when you’re on duty. If so, it’s a wonder you made Major General at all.”

Hux’s eyes snap open again and fix harshly on Ren’s face. “I do  _not_  lie in bed all day,” Hux hisses. “I am  _never_  late for my shift. I am _extremely_  punctual.”

“Prove it.”

Ren sweeps out, door banging shut behind him. Hux is reminded, forcefully, of their wedding night, and the emotions he’d been trying to drown in alcohol yesterday come flooding back. He heaves a heavy sigh and allows himself a moment to wallow in the pulsing pain of his head and the ache in his heart. 

Hux wants nothing more than to go back to sleep, to pull his pillow over his head to block out the light and sleep off this unbearable hangover.

Hux glances around for a glass to fill with water and finds none. He turns on the faucet regardless, bends, and tips his head to drink straight from the stream of water. In this, with no one here, he doesn’t have to be dignified. He just needs to hydrate. 

Hux brushes his teeth and makes an attempt at combing his hair with his fingers, the residual product in it from yesterday just barely enough to hold a style, though hardly one as well-groomed as his usual. He wishes he could go back to sleep. He hears Ren’s voice ringing in his head, repeating snatches of their argument yesterday end to end in no coherent order, scrambled as they are by a day of heavy drinking, a night of restless sleep, and a morning of ruinous hangover.

Hux dresses, albeit slowly and with far less care than he normally would. His head pounds. What is he supposed to dress for, anyway? Ren could at least give him a clue. Hux chooses a decently nice shirt and simple black pants, reasoning that whatever errand or activity Ren has planned, this outfit should be reasonable.

Hux descends the stairs and looks in each room on the first floor, finding Ren nowhere. He checks upstairs, peering into each bedroom and bathroom, with no sign of him. Checking a towering grandfather clock in one hallway reveals that the time is 0828. Hux’s irritation swells – he has no desire to be late, when he insisted to Ren that he is always punctual.

If he’s not inside the house, he must be outside. Hux storms into the gardens, wincing in the morning sunlight. No sight of Ren yet, but the gardens are extensive. They could take forever to search, Hux realizes with a groan.

_Fuck,_ Hux thinks, _who cares if I’m late?_ He’s not on duty here, and the only expectations on him are Ren’s, and Hux doesn’t care much for Ren’s expectations. As he strides down a path that loops around a circular lawn with a dry fountain at its center, Hux spots a figure, squatting at the base of some hedges. The man wears working clothes and a wide-brimmed hat – obviously here to tend to the gardens.

“Where is Ren?” Hux demands of the groundskeeper as he strides up to the man across the lawn, soft grass bending under his boots.

The man starts, surprised at being addressed.

“Sir?”

“Ren, where is he?” Hux demands again. “He isn’t in the house, so I’m certain he’s on the grounds.”

“The master, sir?” the groundskeeper asks. “Saw him headin’ off to the stables – ”

_Stables?_ “Oh, for stars’ sake – where are the stables?”

The groundskeeper points a garden-gloved hand down one gravel path. Hux turns on his heel and heads down it.

The stables, when Hux reaches them, are not an overly impressive affair, though perhaps they were when they were first built. They’re not in disrepair, but certainly not as well kept as the house. They’re larger, certainly, than any such building Hux has seen before. The front door of the stables stands open. With a breath to collect himself, Hux steps inside.

The air smells of animal stench, and of manure and dried grains and stagnant trough water. Hux’s eyes adjust slowly to the dim light inside the stables, and slowly Ren, in his dark clothing, becomes visible where he stands, holding the reins of two saddled creatures loosed from their pens.

The animals are not creatures Hux is familiar with. They stand nearly nine feet tall at the apex of their hunched back, with six stocky legs and a trunk-like snout and small, watery dark eyes. The saddles they wear are intricately decorated and expensive-looking, but Hux has no intentions of using them.

“What is this?” Hux asks.

“It’s a riding lesson,” Ren says simply.

“No.” Hux folds his arms firmly across his chest.

“Oh? Is the decorated military man afraid of a simple animal?”

“I _never_ said I was afraid. It’s simply not dignified.”

“It’s _dignified_ ,” Ren insists. “Riding these creatures is an _art_ on this planet. It takes _skill_. It’s considered a great honor to be good at riding these.”

“It’s an honor I’ll have to decline,” Hux sniffs. “I’m not dressed for it. Nor will I ever be.”

Ren studies him for a minute, and Hux’s skin prickles. It’s uncomfortable, being studied the way he is. His head is still splitting and he could be in much better form, and he doesn’t need Ren inspecting him, picking him apart in his mind, to make this day worse.

“I think you’re afraid,” Ren says.

Hux frowns. “I told you, I’m not afraid of these stupid animals.”

“You’re afraid of looking stupid, then. You’re afraid you’ll be bad at it.”

“I am _not!_ ”

“Show me, then.”

Hux, incensed, plants a solid boot on the wooden steps next to one of the animals. Before he even realizes what he’s done, he’s climbed on top of the animal and swung one leg over, sitting high in the saddle and looking down at Ren where he still stands on the ground. Ren doesn’t say a word. He only purses his lips, just slightly, and turns to climb aboard his own mount.

Hux has done this before, but on a different animal. The kind they had on Arkanis weren’t nearly so tall nor so broad – they had backs that Hux, standing at over six feet tall, could rest his chin on, and though barrel-chested, were nothing in width compared to the animal he now sits astride. Hux feels the sting in his thighs as they’re stretched wide open to wrap around this animal’s chest.

“Now what?” Hux asks, glaring sidelong at Ren.

“Now we ride,” Ren says. He takes up the reins draped over the animal’s hunched neck and snaps them, spurring the animal into motion. The creature lumbers out of the stables and into the sunlight, loping slowly along the dirt path leading through the gardens and out to the forest.

Hux shifts nervously in his seat. He’s never done this before, of course. These animals are likely trained differently than those he’s ridden in the past, and Hux has no information on what kind of training they’ve had. Hux glances down at the hulking mass of animal between his legs. This thing must weigh two tons, and doesn’t look built for speed at all, nor capable of coordinating all its legs in a gallop. Hux grits his teeth and shifts in the saddle. Ren’s form astride his mount is already growing smaller in the distance, and Hux won’t be left behind. He lifts the reins and snaps them, copying Ren. When the beast doesn’t move, Hux digs his heels into its sides – that was how you made beasts go, in Hux’s experience. Still nothing. In a fit of frustration, Hux snaps the reins again, much harder this time, and the beast lurches to life, lumbering straight forward out of the stables and down the road after Ren.

Hux manages to catch up with Ren, though he can’t tell if it’s due to his relentless snapping of the reins making his mount go faster or Ren slowing slightly to let Hux reach him. The morning sun is bright and clear, warming the cool morning air, but shooting lances of pain behind Hux’s eyes. At least the sun here is not so damned intense as the sun of Corellia – but still a nuisance, to Hux’s hungover brain and fair skin.

“They’re nearly blind,” Ren says as Hux’s mount draws up to his own, “so you’ll have to do most of the work of steering them.”

Hux scowls. “What’s the use of a creature that can hardly see?”

“It’s part of the sport. The better control you have over the animal, the better it performs. Some of them run agility courses.”

They take their time riding through the countryside in relative silence. Not that Hux would like to be taking his time, however. If he could spur the beast to move any faster, he would. Hux heavily doubts Ren’s claims that these creatures can run agility courses. It seems like all they’re equipped for is eating, and lumbering slowly to a new spot for food. Hux is channeling so much energy into keeping his mount on track that he ignores the scenery – rolling hills in the distance, green and gold fields along either side of the path, small copses of trees providing transient but much appreciated shade now and then as they pass through.

Even as preoccupied as he is, somewhere in the middle of the countryside Hux becomes aware of Ren looking at him.

“What?” Hux barks, snapping his reins ineffectually and refusing to look over at Ren.

“You look much better today,” Ren says. “Compared to yesterday.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Hux says. His skin itches under Ren’s appraising gaze. “I don’t want to hear about how _disappointed_ you think you are in me for how I spent my day yesterday. I don’t need to hear your criticisms.”

“I didn’t – ”

Hux heaves an irritated sigh. “Just – stop.”

Ren shuts his mouth and turns away, casting his gaze over the open, lavender-colored fields of native grasses to their right. Hux stares doggedly ahead, his eyes on the path where this creature he’s astride will be putting its feet, his hands wrapped so tightly in the reins that his fingers feel cold even in his gloves.

They ride for a while, until the sun is peaking in the sky. The ride is long, and yet Hux isn’t bored – the beasts, it turns out, require more attention to control than Hux previously anticipated. Every second is a battle with the animal, tugging its reins this way and that to straighten its path, snapping the reins in a futile attempt to make the beast move even the tiniest bit faster to match Ren’s beast’s pace, and cursing every time the animal stops to shovel plant matter into its mouth with its thick trunk. This stress, and the strain in his legs, and the headache still splitting his head and aggravated by the bright sun, have Hux in a foul mood, gritting his teeth hard.

“You’re doing well,” Ren says as they exit a small copse of trees, as if sensing Hux’s cresting frustration.

“I don’t need your _praise_ ,” Hux spits. “It’s _hardly_ difficult.”

Ren gives a snort of laughter. It’s a cold sound, harsh and unkind. Hux opens his mouth and turns towards Ren, intending to give Ren a piece of his mind, only to watch him drop the reins of his mount. Ren blinks slowly, exhales – and suddenly his mount bolts, racing down the path with its six stocky legs thundering in the dirt. Ren remains perfectly upright in the saddle, hardly looking ruffled. Hux stares and watches the beast weave through trees, leaping over logs and a thin stream, turn a perfect figure eight and leave a mark of its path in the grass, and then come to a prancing stop in front of Hux’s mount, the animals facing each other head on.

Ren was hoping to impress Hux. Hux won’t give him the satisfaction. He sniffs and stares darkly at Ren.

“They’re stupid,” Ren explains. “They’re easy to influence. With reins you can do alright, but it’s easier to just reach into their minds and take things from there.”

“Reach into their minds,” Hux repeats, disbelieving.

“I can, you know. I have the Force. My mother has it, so does my uncle. And my grandfather – he was the strongest, he was a legend…”

“If you’re so good at it, with your magic or whatever – ”

“The Force – ”

“Whatever it’s called. If you’re so good at it, why aren’t _you_ taking these ugly beasts to shows, or whatever they have for them?”

Ren grins wolfishly. “It would be considered cheating.”

Hux looks at him flatly. He has the feeling that Ren _has_ taken these beasts to shows, won prizes, even – and no one has ever been the wiser about his hocus-pocus. Hux sniffs and wonders if Ren kept the ribbons, if he has them hung on his wall in his rooms at the Palace, like a child.

“I want to go back,” Hux says. “I’m – starving, and sweaty, and covered in dirt. My legs hurt. I’m going to smell like these animals for a week.

The smile (unpleasant as it was) falls from Ren’s face. He tips his chin up, sticking his nose in the air – a rather regal response to not receiving the reaction he predicted.

“Have it your way, _beloved_ ,” Ren says. Hands still at his sides and the reins hanging slack over the creature’s neck, Ren’s mount lumbers down the path, back into the forest. Ren is still trying to show off. Hux rolls his eyes and tugs the reins of his beast sharply to the left, waits for the creature’s slow brain to respond and turn its body back down the path in the direction they had come. Ren rides so far ahead of him for the duration of the return trip that Hux hardly sees so much as the back of Ren’s head for the entire hours-long ride back to the stable. Ren doesn’t glance back once.

When Hux climbs down from the animal and lands on the ground, his legs almost give out beneath him. He hadn’t realized how exhausted his muscles were, and how sore. Hux is grateful that Ren is too busy removing the saddle from his own mount to notice Hux’s stumbling.

“I’m going to have a bath,” Hux sniffs. He looks down at his shirt, picked this morning for something less strenuous than riding, now dusted with dirt and damp at the armpits where Hux had broken a light sweat. “I’m disgusting.”

Ren doesn’t comment, or look at him. Somehow, it rankles Hux, having Ren ignore him. With a huff, Hux stamps out of the stables and off through the gardens towards the house. He’ll draw a bath, send for dinner and have his clothes taken to be washed, and rest his tired body – and forget about Ren.

 

~*~

 

Upon waking the next day Hux discovers that his body still aches, mostly in his thighs from stretching them to sit on those beasts. But today he had been allowed to sleep late, undisturbed until nearly 1000 hours. Last afternoon following their surprise riding outing he’d had his bath, and a nap, and dinner in his quarters, all of it well away from Ren’s vexing presence. It had almost been relaxing.

He checks his data pad and finds a reply to a message he’d sent to the colonel, checking in. She assures him that everything is under control aboard the _Augury_ , but they await his return. He isn’t sure how much he believes that she is handling his duties, but the message is reassuring all the same. Hux dresses for the day and meanders down to the kitchen for some breakfast.

“Good morning, my lord,” the cook says upon Hux’s yawning entry to the kitchen.

“Mm,” Hux replies. It has been strange, getting used to being called ‘my lord’ instead of by his rank. Hux supposes that the lordship _is_ a rank now, separate but equal to the one he holds in the Order. Perhaps this one even supersedes his military rank. Being the Duke of any kingdom is a rank that must outstrip even a Major General of a galaxy-wide military organization.

The cook installs him at a table with some eggs and toast, at Hux’s request, and which Hux eats with little hurry. He hasn’t got anything to do today, especially in the absence of Ren, who doesn’t seem to be anywhere around today, once again.

Hux excuses himself from breakfast and makes his way out to the gardens. He’d explored the house a couple of days ago, and seen some of the grounds on his way to the stables yesterday. Today he can explore the rest of the gardens. It ought to be enough to occupy him for a couple of hours, at least.

Hux wanders the gardens in concentric circles for a while, exploring first the parts closest to the house and then those further away, until he comes to the edge of the cultivated gardens. They border a forest, which also seems to be on the property, or at least part of it does. They’d ridden through plenty of it yesterday, though Hux doubts that all of that had belonged to the Royal Family. Well, at least from a land ownership perspective. This planet is under their rule, so from a certain point of view, every inch of it belongs to Ren and his family. Hux steps into the shade of the forest, following the wide dirt path that wends through it.

Hux walks for a while. The terrain is flat, and the air is cool and mostly shielded from the now-midday sun. The trees are towering and flush with dark green foliage. The planet is in the throes of summer, and yet not so unbearable as Corellia had been, though there it had only been spring. Hux even catches a few glimpses of local fauna – small mammals clambering up and jumping between trees, flighted animals of varying sizes and varying states of feathers, and even a larger, buff-colored animal peering bashfully between the trees at him.

Hux is about to turn back down the path and head towards the house when he hears a noise, like wood being smacked against thicker wood. His brow furrows. Hux finds his boots leaving the path, crunching softly on twigs and dry leaf litter, moving towards the sound. The further he gets, the more underbrush he has to push through, until eventually his surroundings grow brighter. Through a single row of trees, Hux sees a wide, open clearing, and a darkly-clothed figure at the center off it.

Ren stands with a short staff in his hands, simple thing looking to be made of two straight wooden rods, one much shorter than the other and seeming to act as a cross-guard. Ren grips it in two hands, centering himself and balancing evenly on his widely-spread feet. Without warning he lashes out at a nearby tree, striking three times in quick succession, the clicking of wood on tree bark marking successful hits. Then he falls back once again to his broad resting stance, both hands at the hilt of the wooden sword.

Hux is reminded, suddenly, of a thirteen-year old Ren, whacking at bushes by the river in the Palace gardens. It’s the same, but drastically different – the passion is still there, but his body has grown and become more muscular, more powerful, more graceful. He’s an artist with a weapon now, rather than a boy playing at fighting. At the Academy Hux had had limited practice with anything resembling a sword, but he’d had enough to know that Ren was leagues ahead of him in this area.

With an exhausted huff, Ren sets the staff down, leaning it against one of the trees he had previously been sparring with. Hux’s breath catches in his throat as he watches Ren strip his shirt off, like drawing the curtain up on a stage. He really _is_ muscular, with a broad chest and strong arms and a tight, flat stomach. Hux would never have guessed at this. He knew Ren was bigger now, a full-grown man, of course, but his physique is so well hidden under heavy, regal garments that Hux had never realized just how much he had grown. Hux feels strange, watching this from the shadow of the wood. He shouldn’t be spying on this. It isn’t something he was meant to see, and yet – this is his husband, as reluctant as Hux is to accept that title. It should be his right to observe this openly.

Hux clears his throat as he steps through the trees. “Hello, Ren,” he says, and watches as Ren jumps and spins towards him in surprise.

“Hux,” Ren says, breathlessly, clutching his shirt to his broad chest as if it could hide anything, as if Hux hasn’t already seen it all.

Hux surveys the clearing, acting as if he has only just walked up. He fixes his eyes on the staff in Ren’s hand. “Practicing?”

“Yes,” Ren says warily.

“Put your shirt down and get back to it, then,” Hux says airily. “I’m your husband, for stars’ sake. I’m not going to swoon over your bare chest.”

Ren’s brow knits. “But you’ve never – ” he starts, then snaps his mouth shut. He must be realizing that he’s better off not arguing on this, since even this sudden and confusing change of heart is better than Hux recoiling from him in disgust. “I should have sensed you.”

“Sensed me?”

“With the Force. That’s what this training is for, after all.”

“Hmm. Looks like combat training to me.”

“It _is_ combat training. But it is _also_ Force training. Like meditation.”

“Hmm.” Hux leans back against a tree and folds his arms, trying not to think of the tree debris that will undoubtedly be stuck to his clothing. “I’ve never found sparring practice to be particularly meditative.”

“You’re about as Force-sensitive as a rock,” Ren says flatly. “In fact, I’ve known rocks more Force-sensitive than you.” He catches sight of Hux’s scowl and hastily amends his statements. “It’s not a bad thing. But it means combat training means something different for you than for me.”

“Show me, then.”

Ren stares at him. Hux stares right back, catching Ren’s warm-brown gaze confidently.

“There’s nothing to show,” Ren says.

“You showed off well enough yesterday. With the beast.”

“There’s no beasts here to manipulate. You won’t be able to see it. Maybe not even feel it.”

“Then practice. I’ll see it for myself, if there’s anything to see.”

Ren drops his shirt down on the soft grass beneath his feet and picks the wooden sword back up again. He seems to hesitate for a moment, frozen in his position, until he shuts his eyes and exhales a deep breath and seems to find his center.

Ren is right. Hux doesn’t feel anything – nothing he could call the _Force,_ anyway. He notices the fluid movement of Ren’s body, the flex of his muscles under pale skin, even the dark moles that dot his back and chest the way they dot his face. Ren has the type of body Hux likes in a man, broad and muscular and well-controlled. Hux thinks about the men he’s been with who have looked like Ren, and comes up with a very short list; Ren has a remarkable body, Hux thinks. Almost unparalleled.

“You can join,” Ren says. His hands grip tight at the base of the stick, and his eyes are focused forward on an imaginary target instead of on Hux. “If you like.”

“No thank you,” Hux says. “Still sore from your little outing yesterday.”

“It’s not the same without a sparring partner,” Ren says. Four quick, hard strikes at the tree punctuate his statement.

Hux watches Ren practice for quite a while, sitting at the base of a tree.

At some moments, Ren seems to almost forget Hux is there; others, he seems acutely aware of Hux and seems to be trying to impress him. Hux just watches. Ren is a good fighter, he’ll give him that. The warrior training seemed to have paid off. Hux wonders if Ren has ever seen a real fight, or if he’s all skill and no experience. He finds it hard to believe that anyone, especially Queen Leia, would allow the Prince to see any kind of real action. He doesn’t have battle scars, or at least not any Hux can see – though perhaps Ren is just a good enough fighter that he has avoided them.

Hux feels like he’s surfacing from a trance, hours later, by the time Ren lays down his wooden sword and picks his shirt back up from where it has lain in the grass.

“Practice is over?” he asks, his gaze snapping up to Ren’s face as he pulls his shirt down over his chest.

“Yes,” Ren says. “I’ll be returning to the house.”

Hux nods and stands. He wants to brush the grass and dirt from his backside, but the action seems undignified, so he refrains. Ren snatches up his wooden sword and twirls it overhand once before letting its tip point back at the ground.

It’s a fairly long walk back to the house; Hux hadn’t realized he’d walked this far. They make the journey mostly in silence. Hux supposes they don’t really have much to talk about. Hux feels a little more at ease in Ren’s presence, having been with him all day without a single antagonistic interaction, but by no means does Hux consider them on good terms. Ren, at least, offers his silence, and doesn’t try to force Hux into a conversation.

The sun is low on the horizon and preparing itself to set by the time they reach the house. They stop in the foyer of the house together, their silence suddenly awkward.

“Will you – will you have dinner with me,” Ren asks. His expression is only slightly pleading – mostly it is wary, as if already knowing what Hux will say next. “Tonight.”

“I – ” Hux says, and then hesitates. “I think I would prefer to have dinner in my room.”

“Ah.”

“I’m – sorry.”

Ren shakes his head, dismissing Hux’s apology, though not unkindly. “Have a good evening, then.”

Hux regrets rejecting his offer, just a little bit. Not enough to change his mind. There’s something itching under his skin that Hux needs to go and figure out. He excuses himself to his room with a small nod and a murmured “my lord,” leaving Ren alone in the foyer.

Once alone in his room, Hux lets himself feel the crawling sort of tension that he can’t identify, the something that’s been niggling at him for hours now. It’s nothing like dread, or annoyance, or anger, but whatever it is Hux senses that it came from Ren – or spending time with him.

When the butler brings him his dinner in his room, it is with a solitary glass of wine. He wonders if the wine was the butler disobeying Ren’s orders, or if this concession to his own given orders what an apology, however small, from Ren.

 

~*~

 

Hux is sipping caf at the table in the kitchen with late afternoon sun streaming through the kitchen window when Ren bursts in, glancing around for something.

“Ah, Hux,” Ren says. He appears to have found what he’s looking for: Hux. He looms over the table, but it isn’t his usual loom. He is less sinister than usual, and more childlike, almost excited.

“My lord,” Hux replies calmly.

“You asked yesterday for a demonstration of the Force,” Ren says. “Do you still want to see?”

“And you said you already demonstrated it. With the beast.”

“You wanted a demonstration as it pertains to hand-to-hand combat.”

Hux looks him over, and notices the hilt of his lightsaber hanging at his hip. “With that?” Hux says, nodding at it.

“Yes,” Ren says. He’s still looming, and Hux knows he won’t stop until Hux agrees to go with him.

“Alright,” Hux says, “show me.”

“Come with me,” Ren says.

Hux is lead out of the kitchen, out of the house, and out of the gardens. They don’t proceed so far into the woods as they were last time, but it takes Ren a while to locate a suitable clearing. When he does, the change in direction is abrupt – one moment they’re walking along the path, and the next Ren is taking Hux by the arm and leading him through the underbrush.

Hux installs himself at the far side of the clearing from Ren, though it doesn’t give much distance. He watches as Ren strips his shirt off over his head and tosses it to the side.

Hux raises his eyebrows. “Skipping straight to it, are we?”

“Greater range of movement.” Ren stretches his arms and chest as if to prove his point.

“You could wear looser clothes.”

Ren gives him a withering look and takes the lightsaber off his belt and holds it in an outstretched hand, faced away from Hux. “You wanted to see the Force.”

“Is your bare chest necessary for it?”

Ren ignores him and Hux watches the saber flare to life. His eyes widen at the sight. Ren’s saber blazes red, crackles and spits and hums as it burns: like fire, like a jet engine burning but quietly. It’s much different than any of the few lightsabers Hux has ever seen in action. Those have been a solid beam of light, smooth and controlled and largely silent. Hux wonders where Ren got this one, that it acts like that. It seems dangerous. Two sparking, shorter beams at right angles to the main beam form a cross-guard; Hux understands now why Ren had practiced yesterday with a wooden sword complete with cross-guard instead of a normal staff.

With a flick of his wrist Ren sets the saber spinning – a slow, lazy arc in the air, a sweep of hot red. Ren widens his stance and grips the saber in both hands, preparing himself.

When Ren strikes out, it’s impressive. Hux saw many of these moves yesterday, in the clearing, with the wooden sword, but here they are more powerful, sharper, even more fluid and much more destructive. The light of the saber throws red highlights over Ren’s hair and skin and glints in his eyes. Hux tries not to shiver. Ren is entrancing in his own way: powerful, vicious, yet controlled – for the moment. Hux has the sense that Ren is akin to a lion tamer, his unstable saber the beast and his muscular body the whip he uses to push the weapon to obedience.

The saber works as an extension of Ren’s hand, striking out precisely and carving deep, burning marks into the three that is Ren’s target. Long, smooth, blackened cuts are left glowing orange at the edges from the heat. Low-hanging limbs are sliced away in instants; some of the boughs that crash to the ground as thick as Hux’s arm. Hux feels a strange tingle of something like excitement, or perhaps wonder. This weapon is astounding, unstable as it seemed. Somewhere in his mind, Hux knows the statement holds true for both the weapon and its wielder.

When Ren has finished, the tree stands charred and smoldering, some parts still burning orange. Hux doesn’t even notice the awed expression on his own face until Ren looks at him and smirks.

“I didn’t realize the Force was so _destructive_ ,” Hux says. He feels breathless, and unable to take his eyes off the red glow the saber casts on Ren’s skin.

“The Force should be used for guidance, not destruction,” Ren says. He sounds bored, as if the words had been repeated to him so many times that he absorbed them, and now parrots them back when he can’t help himself. “My uncle’s words. But you should see what this saber does to metal,” Ren adds, a wicked smile spreading over his face.

“You don’t like him,” Hux says. “Your uncle.”

“That’s – a way of putting it.”

“I saw it at the wedding. What happened between you?”

Ren’s expression darkens. “We just have different views,” he says. “That’s all.”

Hux doesn’t say anything. He watches the irritated twitch of Ren’s hand that sets the saber spinning, a single perfect 360-degree arc until its point is once again inches from spearing into the ground.

“Anyway, the saber works without the Force,” Ren says. “Even _you_ could wield it.”

“I shouldn’t want to,” Hux says. He eyes the saber, again admiring its raw power even as it hangs at rest from Ren’s hand. “It looks like it would take my hand off. Though perhaps we could stand to have a few, for my troopers.”

“It might _work_ for someone without the Force, but a weapon like this – it’s dangerous to use, if you don’t have the Force to control it.”

“Then perhaps we ought to just have you,” Hux replies.

Something crackles in the air between them, like static electricity, low-level and surging. “Yes,” Ren says. “Perhaps you ought to.”

The moment passes, as if it had been a brief obstruction of the sun by a cloud. Ren turns away, back towards the tree he had carved and burned with his saber.

“You’ve seen a fraction of what the Force can do,” he says.

Ren holds out his hand, his fingers curling as if tightening around an invisible object, his palm turning up and his arm straining as if he were really lifting something heavy in that empty hand. The limbs that Ren had cut to the ground minutes ago rise slowly, lifting from the forest floor to hover at eye level.

“A nice trick,” Hux says.

“It isn’t a trick,” Ren says. His back is still to Hux, the muscles in it straining as if he were lifting those branches with his hands. “I can stop blaster fire like this. I could stop whole starships, if I wanted. The Force is not – just swinging a lightsaber and controlling some beasts. It’s power.”

“Power,” Hux repeats, and he thinks he can certainly see it. Not in the Force, perhaps, which still seems like a child’s magic trick though he has seen it with his own eyes, but in Ren. Ren’s body is still lit with the red light of his saber, shining on the sheen of sweat that covers his bare torso, and he looks terrifying this way, but somehow attractive. Like a big cat that’s escaped its cage.

“Will you dine with me tonight?” Ren asks.

Hux eyes him with that same strange tension from yesterday twisting his guts. “I – no,” Hux says.

“Do you have something better to do?”

“I just – prefer to dine alone, Ren.”

This isn’t entirely the truth. Hux enjoys dining in the company of others – if they’re the right sort of company. That tension is bothering him, something deep that he can’t put his finger on, and it seems to be tied with Ren. Hux doesn’t know if he can manage a whole dinner with the man.

Ren lets the branches crash back to the forest floor.

“Have it your way,” Ren says.

They make their way back to the house in silence. Hux finds himself nervous that he might have offended Ren, in refusing his offer of dinner for the second night in a row. Hux reasons that he is only nervous about refusing him now that he has seen what Ren is really capable of with that saber – not out of any concern for Ren’s _feelings._

They part once again at the foyer, a pair of mumbled “Good evening”s from both of them, and Hux is climbing the stairs to his room.

Once alone, Hux thinks over what Ren showed him today. It would be fine, certainly, if he had people like Ren in the employ of the Order. A squad of Force-sensitives, powerful and deadly with their sabers. He’d take even one. His dinner is brought as he mulls this over, thinking through plans for finding such individuals. Perhaps they should screen for it, somehow, when they’re taking children for the Stormtrooper program.

Hux eats his dinner and dresses for bed. As he slips under the sheets, he finds himself distracted by other aspects of Ren’s display today. Hux can’t stop seeing it – the glow of red fire over Ren’s broad body. Hux swallows, feeling a prickle of arousal at the base of his spine. _So that’s it_. Hux finally has a name for the tension he’d felt last night, and this evening. Though there is no one in the room to see his shame, Hux turns onto his side, desperate to stop the tenting of his sheets that occurs even despite the restriction of his underwear.

Hux finds himself slipping a hand down along his body and under the sheets, until he finds where his erection is stretching at the fabric of his underwear. Feverishly, Hux pulls his underwear down, wriggling until he’s able to pull them off entirely. When he has bared himself, he wraps a hand around the base of his cock and squeezes lightly. Hux hisses at the pressure, fingers digging into his already hard and hot flesh.

Hux won’t think about Ren and do this. He has plenty of other experiences to draw on without having to manufacture something involving his husband, who he doesn’t even _like_. Hux squeezes his eyes shut tight and tries to remember the last man he fucked. He had been skinny, not muscular like Ren, and that was a start. But he’d also had dark hair, a detail which Hux had appreciated at the time but now wants to push far out of his mind. Hasn’t he ever fucked any blonds? He can’t remember many, if any.

Hux squeezes his eyes shut and tries to invent one, a blond with a slim body, one who would look good pinned on his back in Hux’s bed. It’s his bed on his ship that he pictures – dark red sheets and all. Hux sees pale skin in his mind’s eye. He sighs and strokes his cock with long, slow movements. He imagines kissing this manufactured blond, first his lips and then his neck. He imagines his cock squeezing into a tight hole, already lubed and prepped. His fantasy boy would cry out, and Hux imagines the look of pleasure on his face, a face that looks somehow familiar…

Hux’s eyes shoot wide open and his hand stills on his cock. He tried so hard for blond hair that somehow, Ren’s facial features managed to creep in under his mental radar. He shakes his head vigorously, mussing his hair where it rubs against his pillow. He grits his teeth and tries again.

He gives up on blond hair and instead thinks about taking a man from behind. No possibility of Ren’s face invading this one. He focuses on the mental image, sees the details so clearly – his own hands still gloved, one stroking the tight muscle of his lover’s back and the other tangled in long, dark hair – and fills in the rest with the real physical pleasure of his hand pumping around his own cock.

It’s been a long time since Hux even indulged in this, let alone since the last time he had a lover. There hasn’t been time to relax, considering how much work he’s had to do lately, and of late when Hux has retired to bed he has fallen asleep immediately, exhaustion knocking him out the second his face hits his pillow. That must be the reason he’s so desperate for this tonight – he’s pent up. Of course that’s the reason. Hux’s hand sets a punishing pace around his cock. He’s never been much for drawing something like this out. When he’s with a partner, certainly, but when it’s only his own palm he doesn’t feel much need to make things last.

Yes, certainly he _is_ pent up, or the mere sight of Ren’s body bathed in red light wouldn’t have been enough to set him off like this. It really was Ren’s fault for stripping off his shirt in that clearing. It was Ren – _Ren_ –

Hux gasps as he comes, semen spilling out between his fingers to fall on the sheets. He shudders in the wake of his orgasm and revels in the release – though he doesn’t feel completely satisfied. No, he still feels tense, needy, horny. What he needs is a real lay, he thinks. Someone who will suck him off and beg to be fucked.

Hux sits up in bed, his cock already softening. There’s a box of tissues on the bedside table, and Hux swipes a few of them out of the box and sets about cleaning himself up. He wipes his hand clean first, then the sheets. Hux clicks his tongue at the pale smears left behind. He’ll have the maid see to washing the sheets in the morning, then. For tonight, he’ll simply sleep away from the damp spot.

When Hux has tossed the tissue away and settles back down, sleep finds him easy.

 

~*~

Hux has been in the study today, working on the pile of accumulated paperwork collected on his datapad. He hasn’t seen Ren for hours, not since catching him for a few minutes this morning before he’d gone out to train. Ren had asked if Hux wanted to come with, offered again to spar with Hux, but Hux had refused him, on the basis of needing to get his own work done. Ren had seemed disappointed, but had accepted Hux’s refusal.

Now, as the sun is beginning to set outside, Hux leaves the study to seek out dinner. He could have had it brought to him in there, of course, but he’s been there all day – it’s better for him to stand and walk about, at least for the length of the trip to the kitchen. As Hux crosses the foyer towards the kitchen, he catches sight of a familiar figure striding in from the front entrance.

“Ren,” Hux calls.

Ren lifts his head and looks directly at Hux. “Hux,” he replies. “I trust you were productive today?”

“I was,” Hux says. He comes to a halt a few feet from Ren. “How was your training today?”

“Uneventful. I still desire a sparring partner.”

“Next time, perhaps. If you promise not to injure me.”

“I would never.”

There is a long, awkward pause. Ren makes a move as if to step around Hux and continue upstairs.

“Ren,” Hux says, holding out a hand to stop him. He feels heat on his cheeks – and when had that happened? When had his body decided to go through with that particular response? “Will you… we should have dinner. Tonight.”

“We should?” Ren asks, brows knitting before the importance of Hux’s request dawns on him. “Oh. We should. Yes.”

“I was on my way, just now.”

“I’ll… go with you, then.”

They settle on a small dining room with a table that seats only six. Ren sits at the head of it, and Hux to his right. Ren calls the butler in, and the butler sets the table around them. They are assured, as he set their silverware down atop cloth napkins, that the cook is midway through dinner preparations already, and that dinner will be out shortly. Ren thanks him, but Hux stays silent until the butler has left.

“This is…” Hux begins, when they’re alone. He flounders for the rest of the sentiment.

“Pleasant?” Ren offers.

_Awkward_ , Hux’s mind supplies. “I suppose.”

“You’re like a cat,” Ren comments. “A particularly skittish cat coming out from under the furniture to sniff my hand. I would like it if we became friends, at least.”

“Be quiet, or I’ll leave,” Hux sniffs. “Anyway, this isn’t an arrangement of friendship, sorry to say.”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

Hux hesitates for a moment, unable to come up with a good reason to not attempt to at least have an amicable marriage, even if it won’t be a passionate one. Fortunately, Hux’s half-formed answer is halted by the arrival of their dinner. The butler sets a plate down in front of each of them – Ren’s is piled with roasted meat, accompanied by a few green things and a small portion of roasted root vegetables. Hux’s portion is more well-balanced, and thankfully so. The cook and butler seem to have already intuited his preferences in his meals.

Hux lets Ren talk as they begin to eat, though not much is said between bites of dinner. Ren talks first of his training, and then moves on to other subjects. Hux tries to pay attention, but finds himself distracted. By Ren, perhaps, though Hux has hardly thought watching others eat to be particularly enrapturing.

“My mother is too soft on the systems we rule,” Ren is saying by the time Hux manages to refocus his mind on Ren’s words. “She rules with an open palm; I find an iron fist more effective.”

“I happen to agree with you, you know,” Hux says. “The kingdom could run much smoother with harsher guidance. None of these squabbles in the outer systems of the kingdom that are being allowed to carry on.”

“That is what the Order is for, as loath as my mother will be to use them, even now that the Order is bound to us.”

“You’ll be king someday,” Hux reminds him, spearing a slice of meat with his fork.

The corners of Ren’s lips twitch up. “So I will,” he says. The two of them look each other in the eyes as Hux puts the slice of meat in his mouth and begins to chew. “Of course, you’ll be king too, someday. Since I will be. King-consort, at least.”

Hux’s chewing grinds to a halt, cooked muscle fibers sliding between his molars. He studies Ren for a moment before swallowing. Hux has a vision of himself, suddenly, a _king_ , running the First Order from his position as both its highest officer and its employer. It’s a lot of power, the kind he – and his family for generations before him – has craved for his entire life. Hux feels his heart hammering excitedly in his chest at the thought.

“Yes,” Hux says calmly. “I suppose I will.”

“You haven’t thought about it much before, have you,” Ren says. “I feel it. You’ve been too busy climbing through the ranks to think about what would happen once you and I were married.”

“No,” Hux says. “It hasn’t really set in yet. _Duke_ – it seems ridiculous.”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with your titles,” Ren says. “They become you. Don’t you think you sound fine with my titles? They’re honorable. Distinguished. Some would say they’re fetching.”

“Fetching.”

“Yes. A man in power… don’t tell me you don’t find power attractive. You’re ambitious, and you do love your ranks – Major General.”

“It’s different,” Hux says, squirming in his seat. “The rank – that’s earned. The titles… they’re not due to my own work.”

“What does it matter? You still got the titles by being _you_ , specifically you.”

Hux’s cheeks color, suddenly embarrassed by the attention. “It’s, ah… that’s… perhaps I’m just not used to them, yet. I’m only used to having my rank. Being more than ‘Major General Hux,’ it’s…”

“You’ll get used to the titles,” Ren assures him. “The more you acquire, the more mundane they seem.”

“Perhaps to you,” Hux says. “You were born with some already.”

“I suppose. But you have the unique opportunity to experience _gaining_ all these titles. You can have the finer things now, you know. Riches and thrones and power.”

“Ren,” Hux warns.

“Alright, I’ll stop. But think about it, Hux. Think about how you’d look in red and purple and gold.”

Hux feels his cheeks burning at the attention. He spears a few last bits of food on his plate with his fork and pops them into his mouth, chewing for something to do to distract him from the discomfort.

“You’re sensitive about your name,” Ren says.

Hux looks at Ren, startled by the statement. “When one shares one’s name with two generations of men who are still eclipsing them, even in their old age, one tends to get a bit sensitive,” he defends.

“I take it you don’t like to be called ‘Brendol,’ then.”

“I don’t,” Hux says. “Only my sister ever… But no, I don’t like it.”

“It’s your name.”

“Not when I have to share it.”

“What should I call you, then?”

“When I was younger, I… they gave me a nickname. They called me Bren, to distinguish me from my father.”

“Bren, then.”

“No, I hate that nickname. I don’t want it used.”

Ren shrugs. There’s a soft clatter as he sets down his fork.

“You can remain ‘Hux’ to me, then,” Ren says. “You could even drop your suffix in public from now on, if you wish. You’re the first Brendol Hux Organa, not merely the third Brendol Hux.”

The butler slips into the room and quietly takes their dinner plates from the table. Hux stares at the blank stretch of table in front of him, considering Ren’s words. He’d always seen marrying Ren as having his last name, the only name of any meaning to him, stripped away – but as Brendol Hux Organa… Ren is right. It’s a new identity, entirely his own.

“Dessert?” Ren asks, jerking Hux out of his thoughts.

“No, thank you,” Hux says.

Hux and Ren stand and leave the dining room, proceeding together out into the central foyer.

“I enjoyed dinner with you, Hux,” Ren says.

“Yes,” Hux says. “It was… pleasant.”

Hux sees the slight upward curl of Ren’s mouth for only a moment before Hux inclines his head in deference and excuses himself to his room.

Hux locks himself in his room with a feeling of relief. It’s not that he’s necessarily glad to be away from Ren – he’s actually finding spending time with Ren to actually be tolerable. This time it’s only that Hux has a lot of thoughts swirling in his head. A simple conversation with Ren seems to have changed everything.

Hux settles into bed with his mind still whirling, even hours after dinner. He’s still thinking about what Ren said about having the finer things in life, and about how Hux would look in red and purple and gold. And if he shuts his eyes when he touches his cock and sees himself on a throne, a crown heavy on his head and a dark-haired man who looks suspiciously like Ren settled between his legs, who could blame him?

 

~*~

 

Hux steps out the next morning for a walk with Ren to find the air having grown decidedly cooler. Still warm, of course, given the season, but the air seems to have changed. There are fluffy white clouds on the horizon. They head through the forest in the opposite direction of previous walks and rides. This side of the grounds is still covered in forest, but the light seems to hit differently, somehow.

The two of them don’t talk much on their walk. The silence between them is growing comfortable, however – no longer born out of dislike, but rather a lack of need to say anything to one another. It’s easier just to spend time in one another’s presence.

As they walk, they pass the mouth of a narrow path branching from the wide one they’re proceeding on. Hux glances down it curiously, but they don’t alter their course.

“There’s a shooting range off that way,” Ren says, sounding bored.

“What sort of shooting range?”

“Archery, mainly,” Ren says. “My father used it for blaster practice, when it suited him.”

Hux’s skin tingles with excitement. “Show me,” he says.

Ren shrugs and leads him down the narrow path. It winds quite a way into the woods, putting the range far from where anyone on the main path should ever have to worry about a stray arrow or blaster bolt. Hux suppresses a gasp of surprise at the sight of the range when the path opens up on it.

The range is in the middle of a wide, sunny clearing. Three targets are set up at the far side of the clearing, their colors faded from weather but still distinguishable, even from this distance. There’s a small shed that looks as if it hasn’t been touched in years, and a wooden structure next to it to shield archers from the sun.

Hux doesn’t _run_ to the shed, but he does stride quickly. Inside it he finds several bows hung on pegs, and quivers full of arrows, and vambraces, and the other trappings of archery. Hux straps a vambrace to his right arm, snatches a left-handed bow from its peg on the wall, and grabs a quiver of arrows.

Ren is watching him as he heads back outside, but Hux ignores his gaze. Hux stands with his feet spread apart for stability, his body facing towards the targets, and notches an arrow. The movements come back to him easily despite having been left dormant for a long time, like swimming.

“Why didn’t you tell me there was an archery range?” Hux breathes. The exhilaration of staring down the shaft of an arrow has his heart pounding in his chest, and Hux tightens his grip on the bow to soothe the tremors of excitement in his limbs.

“I didn’t realize it would be relevant,” Ren replies.

“It’s relevant,” Hux assures him.

Hux takes a deep breath in, holds it, and then breathes it all out. When his lungs are empty and his arrow aligned, he lets his fingers slip from the string and the arrow goes flying, crossing the range in an instant to bury itself in the target. For a moment, Hux doesn’t even notice how it landed, lost as he is in the thrill of shooting once again, hardly caring if he made his mark. When he thinks to check his shot, he sees the arrow buried deep in the yellow center of the target. Hux grins with satisfaction, hardly aware that his smile probably seems savage and base from an outside perspective.

“I’m better with a blaster,” Hux says wistfully, lowering his bow to his side.

Ren’s gaze slides over to him. “You’re better than a bullseye?”

Hux is, and he knows it – on the inside, even if a similar shot with a blaster would be indistinguishable even to trained eyes. When Hux makes a good shot, he can feel his blood singing; he can feel the beauty of it thrumming in the air.

“If I had a blaster, I could show you,” Hux says. He studies Ren’s face. “Perhaps you could feel it, too. With the Force, or something.”

Hux notches another arrow and raises the bow again, taking careful aim at the target once more. Inhale, exhale, release – and _thunk_. The arrow sinks into the yellow bullseye once again, two centimeters to the right of the first.

Hux looks over at Ren where he stands awkwardly, watching Hux shoot.

“I can’t believe you were taught such a primitive art at the Academy,” Ren says, noticing Hux looking at him.

“We weren’t,” says Hux, shutting one eye to look down at the shaft of the arrow, “it was a personal hobby.”

Hux lets the arrow fly and hits the bullseye again, directly between and slightly above his previous shots.

“And it’s not primitive,” Hux says. “It’s a sport. Just like your – beasts. The ones you rode in shows. Aren’t you going to try?”

“I’m not as…” Ren waves his hand. “As you. I’m better with a ‘saber.”

“Of course you are,” Hux mutters. “Brute force only, with you.”

“Brute force and _training,_ ” Ren fires back.

“Well, I trained at this, too.”

Ren closes his mouth. “Yes,” he says, softly, “you did.”

Hux has no idea what he means by that, but swiftly gives up trying to figure it out. He steps out into the range, crossing it to the targets. Hux feels Ren watching him as he wrests the arrows from where they’re buried.

“How did you know I rode in shows?” Ren asks him when he returns to the covered area of the range.

“You looked so pleased with yourself when you said it – that stuff about how someone could enter and win shows, if they got in the beasts’ heads,” Hux says. “You could only have known from experience.”

Ren falls silent then, and Hux goes back to shooting. He almost forgets Ren is there. Hux has shot four full quivers of arrows and retrieved them before Ren makes a move as if to leave the archery range.

“You’re leaving?” Hux says.

“As entrancing as it is to watch you,” Ren says, and Hux’s shoulders tense, “and it is, you know, entrancing… I have my own training to see to.”

“Have it your way,” Hux says.

“Dinner tonight?” Ren asks.

Hux slides his gaze over to Ren’s and holds it for a moment. “I’ll be there,” he says, shutting one eye to check his aim, and letting the arrow fly straight to the center of the target.

 

~*~

 

Hux wakes fairly early the next morning. His body is beginning to re-acclimate to his usual military schedule, now that he’s adjusted to this planet’s circadian cycle.

Hux stops the maid as she bustles down the hallway with a load of folded towels in her arms.

“I’d like to have my sheets changed,” he says brusquely. He barely waits for her slow look of confusion and dumbfounded nod before continuing on his way. He _knows_ he just had the sheets changed two days ago, but he had brought himself off again last night. His fantasies had taken a decidedly crystalline form – after a while, Hux had simply given up trying to resist the fact that Ren now features heavily in his fancies. His body is enticing, large and muscular and evenly, aristocratically pale.

Hux swallows as he descends the stairs. He feels loose and relaxed this morning. He remembers last night in bursts and snatches, seeing images of Ren on his knees, his full lips wrapped around Hux’s cock, of Ren flat on his back with his legs spread and looking up at Hux with eyes burning. Hux had imagined Ren’s body, tall and broad and muscular, with strong hands holding his hips tight; a thick cock inside him; long, dark hair that tickled Hux’s shoulders when Ren bent to kiss Hux’s upper spine. He’d imagined Ren taking him from behind, fucking him hard enough to force Hux’s hips forward and thrust his cock through Ren’s hand circled around it. Hux had even pushed a hand hard between his own legs to get at his prostate from the outside. It wasn’t often that he indulged that way, rubbing at his prostate and fucking his hand until he came, but it was always a long, gradual, welcome release this way. He’d been momentarily satisfied, but it had been barely enough to take the edge off the boiling frustration he’s been feeling for days.

Hux enters the dining room to find it already occupied.

“Good morning, Hux.”

“Mm,” Hux replies, and sits in the chair to Ren’s right.

The butler brings them breakfast – hard-boiled eggs and fried bread and caf for Hux, and a pile of various meats, scrambled eggs, and some kind of fried root vegetable for Ren. Hux’s breakfast is much smaller than Ren’s, out of habit, and he eats it much slower than Ren eats his, out of respect for his digestion. They eat in relative silence, and Hux is almost finished with his breakfast by the time Ren addresses him further.

“How did you sleep, Hux?” Ren asks, swallowing the last of his current bite of food. _At least he doesn’t talk with his mouth full,_ Hux thinks. Some of Ren’s princely upbringing had stuck, thank the stars.

“I slept well, actually,” Hux replies. He takes a sip of his caf, leaning back in his chair.

“No problems getting to sleep?”

Hux remembers falling asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow last night. Of course, he’d been dirtying his sheets with semen only minutes before he’d fallen asleep, so Hux can’t say he drifted off to sleep entirely unaided. “None that I can remember,” Hux says.

“Really? I could feel you in there, you know,” Ren says. “Thinking. Too loudly.”

His blood feels cold in his veins. Ren could hear him thinking – could he have seen what Hux was doing, what Hux was imagining? “That’s awfully rude,” Hux says.

For a moment, Ren looks puzzled. “I’m – sorry?” Ren tries.

“You ought to ask permission before you go picking through people’s thoughts,” Hux says, folding his napkin precisely. “Just because you _can_ read my private thoughts doesn’t mean that you should.”

“I didn’t go _picking_ – ”

Hux simply looks away, indicating that he’s not interested in the finer details. His heart is thudding nervously, but he doesn’t know why. What should he care if Ren knows he was masturbating? Hux is a healthy adult male trapped in a marriage he never really wanted. Hux has the right to touch himself, regardless of if Ren is in his mind or not.

In his mind…

Hux snaps his gaze back to Ren. “You’re sure you didn’t go rummaging around? You didn’t do any rearranging to drive my thoughts in a certain direction?”

If Ren had been manipulating his thoughts, that could have explained why he could see nothing but Ren in his fantasies.

“Of course not,” Ren says hotly. “You did that all on your own.”

Hux studies him, wary, for a long moment. Ren is scowling at him, obviously offended by the implication of mind control. Hux decides he believes that Ren is not lying, about guiding Hux’s thoughts at the very least.

“Don’t do it again,” Hux says. “No more listening in.”

“It’s difficult not to,” Ren replies, “with you broadcasting at full volume the way you were. You’re easy to read, Hux. _Anyone_ could see the kinds of things in _your_ head.”

Hux sets his fork down loudly, and then stands from his chair, abandoning the few bites of breakfast and the half mug of caf he has left. He leaves Ren alone in the dining room, intending to escape to the study. When he arrives at the library, heart pounding in his chest, he hears voices in the study.

“…changed both sets of sheets this morning,” Hux hears a voice say as he approaches the study. A woman’s voice, so he suspects the maid, though he has never actually heard her voice before. “Quite an odd couple, ain’t they? Sleepin’ in separate beds but bein’ intimate in both of ‘em?”

“Perhaps it’s a little odd,” says a man Hux recognizes as the butler. “But that’s not our business.”

“I’m just sayin’,” says the maid. “They’re the strangest newlyweds I ever seen.”

Hux clears his throat as he pushes open the door and steps into the study.

“My lord,” says the butler, wide-eyed, upon Hux’s entry. Hux sees the maid stiffen in surprise and mortification, her duster gripped tight in one hand.

“Don’t you all have jobs to do that are more important than standing around gossiping? You, certainly, must have some task to be getting on with,” Hux snarls, looking pointedly at the maid. “Tell Lord Ren that I will be at the archery range, should he have need of me.”

He barely waits for the butler’s surprised “Yes, my lord,” before retreating from the study and towards the grounds.

 

~*~

 

Hux wakes to a dim room. It’s pleasant to not be woken so much by the sun as by his body. An inspection through the parted curtains reveals the reason for the lack of light – a summer storm, with thick gray clouds and rain coming down so thickly that the world looks out-of-focus. Hux feels a thrill of excitement. It’s been a long time since he saw a storm like this. He hasn’t been planetside during a storm since before his assignation to the _Augury_ , or even before. Perhaps it has been since Arkanis, before the Junior Academy.

He’ll spend the day inside, then. He’s been waiting for a moment to explore the library some more, to find a book he can read. He might finish one by the time their time here is up, if he starts today.

After a quick breakfast, Hux strolls along the shelves of the library, looking for titles that catch his eye. He finally pulls out an old history, a record of a time hundreds of years before the Old Republic became the Empire. Hux knows this history, of course, but firsthand accounts are still hard to find. He settles into the big chair behind the desk in the study and begins to read.

Hux is several chapters in by the time he is first disturbed. He hears the heavy, muffled sound of boots on the carpet of the library and recognizes them immediately.

“Ren,” Hux says.

Ren’s dark figure shows itself in the doorway a second later. “…Hux,” he says.

Hux hasn’t looked up from his book, but he sees Ren hovering in the doorway in his peripheral vision.

“Don’t stand in the doorway,” Hux says.

Ren steps inside, but hovers near Hux’s desk anyway. His apprehensive looming is distracting enough that Hux puts his book down and fixes his gaze reprovingly on Ren.

“I’m sorry about – yesterday,” Ren says. “It was… vulgar to mention that. At the table.”

“It would be vulgar to mention anywhere,” Hux says. “But it’s alright.”

“Do you mind if I… stay?”

Hux frowns. “This is your house, isn’t it? Spend your time where you will.”

“It’s your house now, too,” Ren says. “ _In this life and all others,_ remember?”

“I remember,” Hux says, doing his best to sound uncaring. He has only ever thought of this house as Ren’s, or as belonging to the royal family. It is still difficult, Hux supposes, to see himself as a member of that family, and not as just a particularly imposing guest. With a guilty twist of his stomach, Hux thinks that it might be easier to see himself belonging if he had truly acted like a husband to Ren. Still, he’s never thought about all the property he now owns – or at least has a share in – until now.

Ren holds his hand out behind him, towards the door, and seconds later a chair from the outer library slides into the room across the carpet. Ren arranges it carefully before sitting neatly on it.

Hux goes back to his book. He reads several more pages, but finds himself distracted by Ren, who fidgets in his seat like a nervous child waiting to be reprimanded by his principal. Hux has read the same line our times over before he gets fed up with it.

“You’re like a child,” Hux says. “Stop shifting so much.”

“I haven’t got anything to do.”

“Go practice with your saber or something.”

“It’s raining.”

“Then meditate, or whatever it is that you Force-sensitives do.”

Ren frowns and leans back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. Hux finds his line in the book once again and refocuses his attention on it. He’s hardly read three words before Ren is sitting up straight and looking restless once again.

“Do you want to play chess?” Ren asks.

Hux lowers the book in his hands. “Chess?” he says. He tries to sound disaffected, but he hears the embarrassing note of excitement in his own voice, and knows Ren won’t even have to use the Force to sense Hux’s interest.

Hux sees Ren’s dark eyes light up. “I knew you’d go for it. There’s a set around here, somewhere.”

Ren wanders off, out into the main library, and returns a few minutes later with a dark wood box. It opens and unfolds on the desk in front of Hux where Ren lays it, exposing a chess board inlaid with squares of obsidian and mother of pearl, and a set of carved wooden pieces, half the pieces in pale wood and the rest in a similar dark wood to the case it all came in. Real chess, not holochess or dejarik. It’s been a very long time since Hux played with real pieces. Hux picks up a piece in his hand and admires it.

“You’ll play?”

Hux looks up from the chess set. “Do _you_ even play?”

“Of course I play,” Ren says. “I’m a prince.”

Hux rolls his eyes and sets about setting up the chess set. Ren watches him, his eyes on Hux’s hands as he places every piece on their respective sides of the board. Hux wonders if perhaps Ren is as fascinated with the process of watching a board come together in perfect order and the thrill of setting those pieces into tactical motion as Hux himself is.

Hux sits back in his chair when he has finished straightening the pieces into perfect uniform order. “Do you want black or white?”

“Black.”

“Of course.”

Hux had set it up that way, with the white side of the board nearer to himself, in anticipation of Ren’s answer. Hux slides a pawn forward.

The two of them make several moves in silence. Hux watches the board. He plans his moves several steps ahead, the way he was taught – dozens of contingency plans in his head for all of Ren’s moves. Hux likes to take his time with chess. He likes to let the moves spread out in his mind, and to take his time weighing the options of each. The luxury of time to plan isn’t always available in military operations, so he takes more than his fair share during chess.

The rain is still pouring outside, and Hux relaxes into the sound. The only thing that could make a game of chess while a storm rages even better would be a nice glass of brandy.

“You could have one,” Ren says when Hux voices this opinion aloud.

“You forbade them from serving me any,” Hux says, “remember?”

Ren frowns. “I had them bring a glass of wine with your dinner. Several days ago.”

“So that _was_ you,” Hux says.

“Yes,” Ren says. “I thought you would take it as a sign that you could request a drink for yourself, from then on.”

Hux sighs. It seems like a moot point now. If the butler happens to wander in, perhaps he’ll have the man fetch him some brandy. Hux sits back to consider his moves. The game has just gotten complex, no longer mostly moving pawns but now beginning to rely on the plays that Hux has memorized, the more complex ones that will take two, three, four moves to execute.

“You take so long to make moves,” Ren says. His voice interrupts Hux’s careful deliberation on which direction to move his knight.

“You move too fast,” Hux replies. “Chess is easier if you think about the move you’re going to make after the one you’re on.”

“That’s _your_ strategy. Your mind is all cluttered with it.”

“You’re reading my mind while we play chess? That’s cheating, Lord Ren.”

“I’m not – well, I can hear you thinking, but I can’t tell which move you’re planning to make,” Ren says. “And I don’t know if the move you’re thinking about is the one you’re planning now, or for the next move, or the one after. I’m not trying to hear.”

To his credit, Ren really must not be trying to listen in on Hux’s move planning. He would have won, if he was anticipating Hux’s moves. By the time Hux mates Ren’s king, Ren seems to have already known he would lose. Hux isn’t expecting Ren to request a second game, but he does.

“You have white this time, then,” Hux says, graciously.

“I like playing black.”

“You’ll have the advantage, if you take white.”

“I know.”

Hux studies him. Ren’s deep brown eyes are serious and stubborn as he stares right back at Hux. It had been a narrow win, and Hux had been eager to see if Ren might beat him if given the white advantage, but Ren’s preference for aesthetics will just have to work in Hux’s favor again.

This time, Hux watches Ren’s face during their game. His face is lively, animated – Hux can practically see all his plans on his face before he makes them. It’s a good thing they’re not playing sabacc.

The butler brings lunch – simple sandwiches, which Ren eats quickly and Hux eats far more slowly. The game drags to a crawl, mostly at Hux’s leisure. He considers his moves for twice as long between bites of his lunch.

Hux is considering one when there’s a flash of light, pouring in the windows from outside. Hux holds his breath and waits for the low roll of thunder.

“You like thunderstorms,” Ren comments.

“I was raised on thunderstorms,” Hux says. “This weather was all I knew, on Arkanis. It’s… nostalgic. And you really ought to stop reading my mind.”

“It’s – hard not to hear you.”

“The problem only seems to be getting worse,” Hux says disdainfully.

Ren shrugs. “The closer you get to someone, the easier it is to feel them.”

“Oh, so we’re close now?”

“Closer than we were.”

Hux moves his bishop and captures one of Ren’s pawns. 

“If you want to know something about me,” he says, “you ought to just ask.”

Hux could have Ren’s king in check in two moves. He looks up at Ren, waiting for that realization to settle over Ren like the dark clouds outside, but instead he finds Ren’s face placid, even happy.

“I think I like this,” Ren says.

“Losing at chess?” Hux replies.

“No. You. Being with you.”

Hux’s heart thuds in his chest and his hand pauses midway through moving his knight.

“I won’t be around much, you know,” Hux says archly, though he doesn’t feel the calm that he’s trying to project. “I have better things to do than sit around a palace all day. I intend to make the rank of General within five years.”

Ren’s knight captures one of Hux’s rooks. “I don’t much like sitting around in palaces all day, either. Perhaps I’ll accompany you.”

“Civilians aren’t allowed on star destroyers.” _Unless they’re prisoners,_  Hux thinks, with a twist of his lips. The image of having his husband in binders in the brig of his ship is almost satisfying. He’d be as out of Hux’s hair there as he would be back on Corellia. With the right prisoner management strategies, of course.

“I’m _not_ a civilian,” Ren says coolly. “I’m a  _diplomat_.”

Hux frowns, his image of Ren in a pair of binders shattered. “Well,” Hux says, “I hope you’re better at being a diplomat than you are at chess.”

There is a long silence. Ren makes his moves, and a while later, Hux makes his. The silence crawls on, but comfortably. Hux even finds himself enjoying this, an echo of Ren’s earlier declaration.

“Checkmate,” Hux finally says, and Ren nods his head in surrender.

“One more?” Ren asks.

“I suppose you want black again?”

Ren nods.

“You’re stacking the odds against yourself,” Hux sighs, but leans forward and moves a white pawn forward.

Hux can sense Ren thinking harder during this game, although his moves are particularly sloppy, so he doubts that it’s about the game. Ren’s turns take longer and longer, yet Hux still seems to be turning the tide against him.

“Hux,” Ren says, still staring at the board during a particularly long deliberation. “Are you… this marriage. It’s not disagreeable to you because I’m a man. You – like men, don’t you?”

Hux feels his heart thud nervously in his chest. “Are you really thinking about that when you should be coming up with your next move?”

“You said if I wanted to know something about you, that I should ask.”

Hux sees four moves Ren could – or at least, should – make. But Ren’s hands are resting on his knees and his eyes are now watching Hux.

“Are you asking if I’m interested in men?” Hux says. Ren only swallows. “Yes, I am. More than you know.”

Ren stares at him. Perhaps it was a poor choice of words – after all, Ren ought to know plenty. He can read Hux’s mind. He must have sensed Hux’s thoughts and memories about the men he’s been with or wants to be with, and he saw Hux’s fantasy the other night.

“You could have fooled me,” Ren says.

Hux laughs, dry and mirthless, but he feels his gut twist with something like guilt. He remembers telling Ren _I wish you had been a princess_ , pushing him away, blocking kind thoughts of Ren out of his mind with a stubbornness of will that Hux is growing ashamed of, especially since burying those feelings doesn’t seem to have worked.

“I couldn’t have fooled you, Ren,” Hux says. “You can see inside my head. I know that.”

“You’re right.”

Ren moves a bishop, right into a good place for Hux to take it with his knight on the next turn. Hux won’t take the bait.

“How long have you known?” Ren asks. “Who was it – the man who made you realize?”

“He wasn’t a man,” Hux says. He stares at the chessboard, pretending to look for moves though he has already picked out his next three. Instead of the pieces he sees a face – or, not so much a face, but chestnut brown hair and a crooked jaw and a narrow smile. “He was a boy, my age. Junior Academy. I couldn’t stop sneaking looks at him, his body, during sparring practice, in the shower…”

“Before you met me?” Ren asks. “When we were – ten years ago?”

“Oh, yes. Before that.”

There is quiet for a long time. Hux tries to focus on his move, and eventually makes one. The click of Hux setting his piece down seems to snap Ren out of his thoughts.

“I had someone like that,” Ren says. “A boy who made me realize I was – that I preferred men.”

Hux glances up at Ren’s face for a moment, and then back down to where Ren’s hand is hovering over the board. He seems to be favoring a knight, and Hux wonders if he’ll try to take one of Hux’s pawns.

“Well, besides you,” Ren says.

“Me?”

“I always knew I’d be marrying you, so,” Ren says, “all my first fantasies were of you. Tame, just kissing, what you’d look like in white, but I liked those thoughts. I never wished you weren’t a boy. I think I knew then.”

“I’m sorry,” Hux says.

“Hmm?”

“For telling you that I wished you were a princess.”

“Oh.” Ren pauses, his fingertips resting on top of his queen.

“It would just have been easier. To get through our wedding night and conceive a child. It’s not that I don’t prefer men, because I do. Exclusively.”

“I understand.”

Ren moves the queen and takes Hux’s last rook.

“So you’re…” Hux waves a hand. “After all, you turned out to be…”

“Gay?”

“Well – yes.”

“Yes, I am,” Ren answers simply.

“Who was he? The boy who wasn’t me.”

“He was one of the guards,” Ren says. “I was sixteen when he started working for my family. He’s – he was very handsome, older than me. Tan skin, like he got to spend all his time in the sun, but he was always in that armor, so his color is natural. He had a smile that was…”

Ren trails off, as if lost in his musings about this boy and his smile.

“What happened to him?” Hux asks softly.

“Nothing,” Ren says. “He still works for my family. I just got over my infatuation, years ago. I had my training to focus on, and a fiancé.”

Hux grabs his remaining knight and slides it across the board, one left and two up. “Check.”

Ren studies the board, his brows wrinkling with concentration. He searches for a move, something that will prevent Hux from snatching up his king. Hux watches the gears turn, knowing that there is something Ren could do to block him – if he only sees the opportunity.

“Take it,” Ren says finally, pushing a pawn uselessly forward.

“That’s three in a row.”

“You’re the better strategist. Are you happy?”

“Yes.”

Ren fixes him with a stare – though Hux doesn’t see any harsh emotions in it, no anger at having lost three times in a row or annoyance with Hux’s attitude of superiority. Only something soft that Hux can’t identify.

It’s pitch dark outside, but the rain seems to have slowed to a drizzle. It’s likely to stop entirely overnight. Ren doesn’t offer to play another game, but doesn’t leave, either. Hux resumes his book and lets Ren occupy himself.

Ren is back to his fidgeting in an unfortunately short amount of time.

“Bored again?”

Ren gives Hux a look, but doesn’t contradict him.

“Read a book,” Hux says, “there’s plenty.”

“I’d rather listen to you read yours,” Ren says. Hux’s brow furrows. Ren’s eyes flick up to meet his, suddenly apologetic. “Would you mind?”

“Fine,” Hux says. “As long as you stop fidgeting.”

Hux settles back in to his book. He can almost swear he feels Ren there, pushing at the back of his mind, as if he’s leaning against Hux to read over his shoulder, but only in Hux’s head.

The butler brings dinner, and they eat in silence. Hux finally has his glass of brandy, but he stops at one.  He’s read half the book by the time the pages become hard to focus on. Hux rubs his eyes and slips the bookmarking ribbon between the book’s pages before shutting it.

“Do you like the book?” Ren asks. His first words in hours.

“It’s interesting,” Hux says. “Did _you_ like it?”

“I don’t find it as interesting as you do, certainly. But I liked hearing it through you.”

“I’m going to turn in for the night,” Hux says, standing from the chair behind the desk.

Ren stands as well. “May I walk you to your room?”

“I know perfectly well where it is.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then I suppose you can.”

They climb the stairs together, and Ren walks Hux down the hall to his room. Hux expects to be followed through the door, but Ren hesitates before setting his foot

“Come in for a moment,” Hux says.

Ren steps inside, but doesn’t bother looking around. This room is familiar to him, Hux knows, and not many of Hux’s belongings are around to change the scene. Ren sits on the bed, and for a moment, he looks as young as he was the last time Hux met him – barely a teenager, already tall and gangly and awkward-looking, but somehow comfortable here. A sudden realization crashes over Hux.

“This was your room,” Hux says. “When your family stayed here, this was your room.”

Ren looks startled for a moment, then frowns. “You wanted to act like a child, so I put you in a child’s room,” Ren defends. 

“This does _not_ look like a child’s room. No child has a room like this.”

“ _I_ did.”

“Well, it’s not normal.”

“I was never a normal child.”

“No,” Hux sighs. “You weren’t.”

Hux sits on the bed next to Ren, taking note of the way Ren’s weight bears down on the mattress and stubbornly refusing to allow the resulting slant to tip Hux towards Ren’s body.

“Thank you,” Hux says. Ren’s brow furrows. “For playing chess with me. It was… I enjoyed it.”

Ren nods. More silence. Half their day was made of it, it seems to Hux, but Hux doesn’t think he minds. Better this comfortable silence than vicious fighting. _Perhaps,_ he thinks, _even if this marriage may never be particularly passionate, it could at least be comfortable._

“I’m going to retire,” Hux says after a while. “For the night.”

Ren stares at him for a moment, as if he isn’t sure what Hux means. The realization dawns on him slowly that Hux is kicking him out.

“Oh.”

Ren stands from the bed, the absence of his weight on the edge of the mattress making it spring up. Hux gives a second, and then stands as well, walking Ren the ten feet to the door of the bedroom.

Ren turns to face Hux once he’s stepped past the threshold of the bedroom and out into the hall. For a moment, Ren looks as if he’s about to lean in and kiss Hux, to catch Hux’s lips with his own for the first time since their wedding day. Hux licks his lips to wet them. Ren blinks, and looks away, seeming to think better of it.

“Good night, Ren.”

Ren hesitates for a moment, but then echoes, “Good night, Hux.”

Hux doesn’t close his bedroom door until he has watched Ren sweep all the way down the length of the hallway and disappear into his own room.

 

~*~

 

The storm has completely broken by the next morning. Hux wakes once again with the sunlight. He wonders if he’ll be able to wake without it when he gets back to the _Augury_ and the black of space. The sky outside is blue and clear of any clouds, and the ground steams as the morning sun burns away the wet of yesterday’s storm.

Hux takes a leisurely breakfast in the kitchen, sipping caf for so long the dregs of his cup are cold by the time he gets to them. He doesn’t see Ren at all for the duration of the morning – and he can’t help but be a little disappointed. Their time yesterday really hadn’t been so bad. Hux finds he could get used to a little talking with a lot of comfortable silence.

By noon Hux is in want of a walk, after yesterday spent inside. When he steps out into the gardens the ground is dry already, and the air is hot, only to grow hotter. Hux could almost get used to the sun, he thinks. It has certainly been nice to not have to wear his gloves and greatcoat just to keep warm.

Halfway through the gardens, Hux hears boots on the path behind him. He slows his pace and lets Ren catch up to him.

“Hux,” Ren says, catching him by the arm. “Come with me.”

Hux walks with Ren, allowing the hand at his elbow, but wondering where he’s being led. Ren doesn’t seem angry. Instead, his face seems calm, but full of purpose. Hux doesn’t ask about their destination. He stays silent, and lets himself be led.

They walk for a long while, leaving the gardens and walking through fields and copses of trees along dirt paths. Eventually Ren brings him to the edge of a sparkling lake, ringed with trees and with tiny waves lapping at the shore. The water is glassy and calm, and clear where Hux looks into it at the shore. Somewhere under there are probably plenty of lesser creatures living very happy, simple lives.

“It’s – lovely, Ren,” Hux says. He keeps his eyes fixed on the unbroken surface of the lake. “What are we doing here?”

Ren turns to face Hux. “You know how to swim, don’t you?”

Hux thinks of the pool at the Academy, the one he learned to swim in. Hux has never swam for recreation, only ever for exercise – though it’s been a long time since Hux swam at all, since before he was assigned to deep space missions and his post aboard the _Augury_. Hux frowns at the water, a clear blue-green and shimmering in the sunlight. The lake won’t be much different than swimming in a pool. Colder, perhaps, but mechanically no different.

“Of course,” Hux says. “You aren’t going to push me in, are you?”

Ren looks at him flatly. “Why do you always assume my intentions are cruel?”

Hux doesn’t reply. Ren holds out some fabric to him, produced from who knows where.

“Swim trunks,” he explains.

Hux reaches out and takes them, pinching them gingerly between his fingers. “Somewhere for me to change?”

Ren motions towards a clump of bushes. Hux purses his lips.

“Fine.”

Hux stalks over to hide behind the bushes to strip out of his clothes. He rids himself of his shirt first, then his pants, with a glance towards Ren to make sure that Ren isn’t watching him strip. Ren has busied himself with stripping off his own clothes, at any rate. Hux doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the sight of Ren’s broad shoulders and the way it sucks the breath out of Hux’s lungs.

Hux pulls the swim trunks on. They are perhaps a little loose; Hux wonders where Ren got them – if they’re his own that Hux is now borrowing, or if Ren procured them somewhere and inaccurately estimated Hux’s size. Hux tightens the drawstring at his waist and steps out, barefooted, from behind the bushes.

Ren is still occupied with shimmying out of his garments, until he is as bare as Hux, in only his swim trunks. They’re black, of course. How perfectly in character. Hux approaches him until he’s nearly close enough to touch Ren. Ren either doesn’t notice, or is ignoring him.

“Well,” Hux says, by way of announcing himself.

Ren pivots and finds himself face to face with Hux. Ren’s eyes drop immediately to Hux’s body, even needing to lean back a little to get a full view. “Oh,” he says.

“You’re staring,” Hux says. He doesn’t like it when men stare at him too long while he’s exposed like this. It reminds him too forcefully of the Academy and the classmates who made fun of his skinny frame and ginger hair. He can feel the comment coming and he’s bristling at it already. He knows he’s skinny, especially for a military man – he doesn’t need to be _told_ –

“You have freckles,” Ren says softly, reaching out and running his fingertips over Hux’s shoulder.

“I – yes,” Hux says. He’s caught off guard by the words and the touch, and he resists the urge to shiver at the brush of Ren’s fingers. “Of course I have freckles. You’ve seen the color of my hair.”

“You don’t have them on your face.”

“No, I suppose I don’t.”

Ren stays for a moment, his fingers and eyes resting on the constellation of freckles on Hux’s shoulders. Hux feels something stir in his gut. Ren’s hands are gentle, too gentle, as if he’s afraid of breaking Hux – no, as if Hux is something to _protect._

“Let’s swim,” Hux says, stepping away from Ren’s touch to hide his sudden nervousness.

Hux steps into the shallows of the lake, feeling the soft, silty sand of the lakebed slide between his toes. The water is cool around his ankles, and Hux feels his skin grow goosebumps despite the warmth of the air.

“What are you waiting for?” Ren says, behind him.

“Nothing,” Hux says. He lifts his foot from the sand and steps forward bravely, until the water has reached his chest.

There’s a splash to Hux’s left, and seconds later Hux sees Ren emerge from the water several feet in front of him. He rakes his newly wet hair back away from his face with one hand and treads water with the other. Water clings to Ren’s dark lashes, glittering in the sunlight when he blinks at Hux.

What an odd thing to notice.

“Get in, Hux,” Ren says.

“I am in.”

Ren raises his eyebrows at Hux. “Can you _really_ swim?”

“Of course I can!”

Hux holds his hands over his head, bends forward, and pushes off from the bottom of the lake. The water is cold on his face as he dives under the water. He surfaces quickly, now too far out in the lake for his feet to touch the bottom, but he treads water easily. He shoots a glance at Ren, and Ren merely shrugs at him.

Hux turns away from Ren to survey the lake now that he’s fully in it. It’s wide, much too wide to properly swim laps, which is all Hux has ever really done when swimming. He’s never been afforded the luxury of just fooling around in the water – now that he has it, he isn’t sure what to do.

Ren seems to have a much better idea, and so Hux follows his lead. He and Hux swim fairly close to the shore of the lake, following its perimeter, far enough out that their feet never touch when they stop for short breathers. Hux swims lazily, enjoying the foot or so of water warmed by the sun at the surface of the lake.

Three quarters of the way around the lake, they come upon a small dock. The wood is mottled green with moss and algae, clearly unused for years. A small rowboat is tied to the dock with frayed rope, its condition matching the dock.

“That looks interesting,” Ren says. It’s clear that he wants to get in the boat. He swims around it, inspecting it from all angles, eyes wide and intrigued.

“Will it hold water?” Hux asks. He frowns at the boat. There’s moss growing through some of the cracks in the wood, and he sincerely doubts that the thing would hold even his weight on his own, let alone his combined with Ren’s.

“It’s floating, isn’t it?” Ren says. He grabs the dock and hauls himself up out of the lake, water cascading off of him and splashing at Hux. Once he has righted himself enough to stand, he peers into the boat. “There’s even an oar in here.”

“Fantastic,” Hux says.

Hux doesn’t bother trying to lift himself up onto the dock. He swims to the shore and walks out of the lake instead. By the time he has made his way down to the boat at the end of the dock, Ren has already seated himself in the boat with the oar across his lap. The vessel looks even more rickety from up here.

“I don’t know, Ren,” Hux says.

“You’ll be fine,” Ren says. “I’ve got you.”

Ren grips the horn cleat at the edge of the dock tight with one hand to steady the boat and offers the other to Hux. After a moment of hesitation, Hux takes it. Ren’s hand is warm, even if wet from the lake, and his hold is strong while he helps Hux wobblingly lower himself into the boat.

Hux sits on the seat opposite Ren with immense relief. “Alright,” Hux says. “You got me in the boat. I hope you’re happy.”

“What’s the worst that can happen? We spring a leak and end up right back in the lake?”

Hux doesn’t have an argument for him. Hux watches Ren unwind the rope from where it’s tied and the boat begins to float away from the dock. Ren gives a good push against the dock with the oar and frees them entirely.

Hux leans back against the side of the boat. Ren dips the oar on alternating sides of the boat, more like a canoe than a rowboat, but he makes due well enough with just one oar. They’re in the middle of the lake in no time, the sun drying the droplets of water that still remain off of Hux’s skin, warming him everywhere the cool water of the lake had leached heat from his body. Ren is engrossed in his task of paddling the boat, hardly paying attention to the glare off the water and the heat of the sun bearing down on his shoulders. He really does look handsome, Hux thinks, with his muscles straining with the effort of propelling the boat.

The heat of the sun in the absence of the cool water is drawing Hux’s energy out of him. Hux lets his eyes droop closed to block out the sun, letting his mind focus on how pleasant it is to have this warmth.

Hux feels his body cool suddenly and opens his eyes to a canopy of leaves. The boat bumps against something hard, and Hux turns to see what it was. They’re back at the dock.

“If you want to nap, we ought to do it on the shore,” Ren says.

Hux protests that he wasn’t napping, but Ren is already lashing the boat back to the dock and setting the oar at the bottom of the boat. Ren climbs out first, then offers his hand to Hux. Hux takes it, steadying himself with his other hand on the dock as he clambers out of the boat to join Ren on solid wood.

“We should get back to the shore we started at,” Ren says.

Hux eyes the shore, which here is wooded and not easily traversable. “I’m not walking back barefoot.”

“We’ll swim, then,” Ren says. He points at the water off the end of the dock. “I’ll meet you here, if you’re going to walk down the dock and get in from the shore.”

“It’s easier to get in here,” Hux says. He stands with his toes overhanging the end of the dock, bends at the waist with his hands over his head, and dives directly into the lake. When he surfaces several feet away, Ren is watching him.

“Well?” Hux says. “Get in.”

Ren scowls for only a second before he is leaping off the end of the dock and into the water beside Hux.

They swim back to their original beach, a much shorter swim than it took to get to the dock, since they take the short way back. When at last the lake begins to shallow, Hux walks out of the lake gratefully, his body exhausted from the sun and the work of swimming.

Ren follows him out of the lake and settles into a patch of grass. He stretches out on his back, lounging in the sun.

“You may as well join me,” Ren says. “You’re too wet to put your shoes back on and head back to the house.”

Hux can’t argue. He lays himself out in the grass next to Ren.

There is silence as they lie in the pale purple grass. Now and then a gentle breeze stirs the leaves of the trees and makes Hux shiver as the lake water dries on his skin. Ren is so close – close enough for Hux to reach out his hand and find Ren’s. Hux curls his hand into a fist and presses his knuckles against his thigh. Ren is dozing, anyway. Hux won’t disturb his sleep.

Hux falls asleep, the warmth of the sun more than enough to keep him comfortable as he dozes. He wakes and falls back asleep several times, dimly aware of the shifting of the sun’s position on the horizon.

“Ren,” Hux says, when he has woken at last from his cycle of napping. “The sun is going down.”

Ren hums and stays still for a few more seconds before sitting up off of the grass. “Looks like you’re dry enough for clothes,” Ren says.

They both put their clothes back on before heading back to the house. The setting sun has tinged the horizon bright orange by the time they reach the gardens. Ren stops before they step into the house and turns to Hux.

“Dinner?” he asks, looking hopeful.

“I’d like to have a bath,” Hux says. “I’ll have dinner in my room.”

Ren casts his eyes down at his feet. Hux immediately feels the need to apologize. They _have_ been taking most of their meals together these last few days, and certainly all their dinners since that first. This must feel like a regression, another rejection after Ren had gotten used to their fragile peace, as Hux had.

“Ren, I…” Hux says. “Today was… I enjoyed it.”

“I – yes. I enjoyed it, too.”

Hux takes his leave and heads upstairs to his room. He showers first, to rinse himself off. He watches a few blades of grass and bits of algae slip down the drain. When he has scrubbed the last of it from his hair, Hux runs a bath. There is a small jar of bath salts in the cabinet beside the sink, and Hux pours a generous portion of it into the water. The salts fill the bathroom with fragrant steam, inviting and relaxing.

Hux sinks into the water, letting it warm every inch of him. He lays his head back, his neck curving over the edge of the tub, and lets himself breathe in the fragrance of the bath salts. Today had been pleasant, certainly, and so had the day before. Ren has been so… Hux can’t find a word that describes Ren’s recent behavior, except that Hux can’t find fault with it. Hux hasn’t found him disagreeable at all in the last few days.

Ren, Ren, he can’t stop thinking about _Ren_. Ren’s broad bare chest wet from the lake and glistening in the sun; Ren dozing next to him in the grass, close enough to touch; Ren playing chess with him and dining with him and showing off his skill with a lightsaber. The thoughts make Hux’s lip quirk up at the corner. Spending time with Ren – this whole honeymoon, really – hasn’t been as bad as Hux thought it might be, even after Hux rejecting Ren on their wedding night.

Hux feels a pang of guilt over that. Would it really have been so bad to just let Ren have his way that night? Or, rather, for them to have their way with each other? It might have made all of this much smoother, had Hux discovered that night that Ren wasn’t as bad as Hux imagined him to be. He could have been in Ren’s bed – _their_ bed – every night since then, instead of alone in the bath on the other side of the house, wondering what that would be like.

Hux wants that, suddenly. He wants to try their wedding night again. He would let Ren do anything, now. Whatever Ren wants, even if it’s Hux on all fours like an animal, Hux wants it too.

The bathwater is growing cold and Hux is half-hard under the water. Hux squirms with frustration. He could touch himself, bring himself off again, as he had been doing more often as of late – and was that Ren’s influence, too, this sudden frequency of his sexual frustration? But Hux knows now that that it won’t satisfy him. There’s no point to that, when Ren is just down the hall, and has been waiting for him for weeks. For years, for their whole lives.

Hux stands from the bath and pulls the plug from it, letting it drain. He towels himself off quickly and searches around for something to cover himself in, something more suitable than a towel, and he finds a robe tucked in one drawer. He pulls it on and realizes that it’s very short – barely coming down to his mid-thigh – but he doesn’t have the time to search for something more appropriate. Hux combs his mostly-dry hair through with his fingers a few times until it’s as close to presentable as it will get, before leaving the bathroom. He ignores the plate of dinner that has been growing cold on the desk as he leaves the bedroom.

Hux marches down the hall, his heart pounding in his chest. He comes to Ren’s door quicker than he thought he might, but he is afraid of losing steam before he actually goes through with this. Stopped in front of the door, Hux raises his hand to knock, then lowers it again, and finally raises it and knocks lightly, as if he’s not sure whether he really wants the knock to be heard or not. He shifts nervously on his feet, toes gripping into the carpet. His legs are cold. What is taking Ren so long?

The door opens abruptly, revealing a long expanse of Ren’s pale skin. 

“Hux?” Ren asks, in nothing but loose fitting sleep pants, dark in color like the rest of his wardrobe. 

“Ren,” Hux answers, trying to tear his eyes away from Ren’s chest. He manages it in time to watch Ren’s eyes flicker down to the robe Hux is wearing.

“You’re wearing a robe,” Ren says.

“Yes,” Hux says. “Can I come in?”

“This is your bedroom as much as mine.”

Hux feels a twist of guilt in his gut. He supposes it’s true, technically, but it doesn’t feel true. This was supposed to be their marital bed, but they’ve been sleeping in separate beds in separate rooms for the better part of two weeks.

Ren steps aside and permits Hux to enter, then shuts the bedroom door. Hux looks around. He hasn’t been in this room since that first night. It looks more lived-in now, but perhaps not as lived-in as it would had they truly shared this room. Hux’s room down the hall is as neat as the maid had left it for them before they had come to visit, with all his clothes folded in the drawers and all his toiletries tucked in the cabinets in the bathroom and the bed made meticulously whenever he isn’t occupying it. 

“The robe,” Ren repeats.

“Yes,” Hux says slowly. “I just... took a bath. This robe is rather short, I have to admit.”

“It was – ” Ren starts, then stops. He shuts his mouth. 

“ _Don’t_ tell me it was your mother’s,” Hux says, thinking of his mother-in-law standing a full foot shy of Hux’s height. Where Ren got the two inches he has on Hux, Hux will never know. Ren shrugs. 

“What’s going on, Hux?” Ren asks. He stands there in loose-fitting sleep clothes, his arms folded over his chest. He looks expectant and skeptical at the same time. Well, Hux supposes he can understand that. Suddenly having his husband in his room after nearly two weeks of being ignored must be coming as a bit of a shock.

“I wanted to – we should – ” Hux starts, but can’t finish. “We’ve – I have a duty.”

“You have a duty,” Ren repeats, an edge of incredulity in his voice. 

“I – yes. Marital duties.”

There’s a long pause while Ren stares at Hux. “That was the worst proposition I’ve ever heard,” he says, finally.

Hux blushes deep. “That’s not, I – perhaps ‘duties’ wasn’t the best way to put it.”

“Do you think so?”

Hux hesitates. Why is this so hard? He had visions of himself coming here, knocking boldly on the door, stepping boldly inside, telling Ren boldly that he is going to deign to have sex with him. Not one single thing has gone the way it was intended. Not a single thing he’s done has been bold. He feels like a coward, standing here, shivering and stuttering in his mother-in-law’s robe.

Ren’s brows are furrowing. It sends a wave of anxiety through Hux. Is Ren getting angry? Will he throw Hux out? Will Hux have to return to his room at the other end of the hall and sleep alone once again, regardless of what he came down here to do?

“I want you,” Hux blurts – desperate, suddenly, to hold Ren’s attention. “I’m sorry for the way I acted on our wedding night, and every night since then, and all the days before the wedding, too, but I want you. I want to consummate this marriage, I want to be your  _husband_ , I want – ”

“Stop,” Ren says.

Hux stops. He hears his heart pound in his ears, deafeningly loud. He waits for Ren to send him away – he would deserve it, after how difficult he’s been for Ren.

“Come here.” 

Ren beckons for Hux to come towards him, to cross the feet of space between them and draw close. For a moment, Hux feels rooted to the spot, until he finally lifts a foot and breaks the spell. He brings himself to Ren in a second. Ren greets him with open arms and broad hands on Hux’s slim waist.

“I’ve thought about this,” Ren says. His thumbs stroke the curve of Hux’s waist, dull through the thick robe, but enough to make Hux shiver anyway. “I’ve – it’s been lonely, without you.”

“Please, stop talking. Just kiss me.”

Ren doesn’t have much experience, so Hux takes charge.  It feels good, right; the way it should have felt on their wedding night. Hux takes his time with this kiss, feeling it out, enjoying it. He lets his lips slide against Ren’s and sucks Ren’s bottom lip into his mouth and meets Ren’s tongue halfway when it snakes out to find Hux’s.

Hux is warmer now that he’s pressed against Ren, but his legs are still bare and cold, and he shivers. Against his mouth, Ren responds with a low, questioning grunt. 

“I’m cold,” Hux says, pulling away only the slightest bit to speak. “This robe is too small, my legs – ”

“Let’s get in bed, then,” Ren says.

Hux lets Ren maneuver them and back Hux up until his calves hit the edge of the bed. Hux falls into it easily, drawing his feet up to lie on the sheets properly, before Ren falls in with him.

They resume their kissing. It seems to be a steep learning curve for Ren – he’s already better now than when they first started a few minutes ago. One of Ren’s hands works at the tie of the robe as they kiss. Hux moves his kisses from Ren’s mouth to his jaw and down to his neck, to allow Ren to focus. When he finally pulls the knot loose, he parts the robe, then slides a broad hand up from Hux’s hip to his stomach and to his chest. The touch makes Hux gasp. Hux may have more experience than Ren, but it feels like it’s been a very long time since anyone else touched him like this. It seemed that the closer Hux got to the top ranks of the Order, the less time he seemed to have for… stress relief. When had it last been since he’d been touched? Six months? A year?

Ren bends his head and sucks at a spot just below Hux’s jaw. Hux doesn’t move to free his arms from the robe and slip out of it entirely. It’s keeping him fairly warm, on his arms at least – Ren’s body heat is taking care of everywhere else. Ren kisses down over Hux’s collarbone and sternum, one warm hand at Hux’s waist and the other gripping the sheets next to Hux’s chest and supporting his weight. Hux shuts his eyes and savors the soft brush of Ren’s lips on his skin.

Hux feels a sudden absence of Ren’s lips, and opens his eyes to see Ren lean back for a good look at Hux’s body. He’s staring; his dark eyes are black with the size of his blown pupils. Hux knows he must look a pretty picture – robe open like a recently unwrapped present, all of Hux’s secrets and surprises on full display. Ren’s eyes rake over him, taking in every detail.

“You look…” Ren murmurs. “Your hair is red here, too…”

“Yes, thank you for the information,” Hux says.

“I like it.”

Ren runs his fingers through Hux’s pubic hair, from the base of his cock up to the thin line of hair that traces up to his navel, and Hux shivers.

“Are you still cold?” Ren asks.

“No,” Hux replies.

Hux exhales a heavy breath and shivers at the brush of Ren’s fingers along the inside of his thigh. Ren shimmies down in the bed until his face is even with Hux’s stomach and begins pressing kisses to the hot, flushed skin of Hux’s belly, trailing kisses along the V of Hux’s hips. Ren’s head dips lower and his lips brush over his thigh and up to his groin, near enough to the base of his cock that Hux feels himself ache in anticipation of what comes next, and he tightens his fingers in the sheets.

“Mm,” Ren hums against Hux’s skin. 

“Oh, fuck – ” Hux tosses his head back against the pillow, back arching as the muscles of his core tighten in response to Ren’s touch. Hux’s fingers tangle tight in Ren’s hair and tug, though Hux himself isn’t sure whether he’s pulling Ren away or pushing him closer. “Right there…”

Ren wraps a solid hand around Hux’s cock, just one big enough to hold most of Hux’s length at once. Ren strokes him slowly at first, as if unsure of how to do this. Hux moans, mostly for Ren’s benefit, and Ren soon has a quick, steady pace set as he pumps his hand around Hux’s cock. Ren gives a twist of his wrist and has Hux arching his back of the bed.

“God, will you – please, fuck me,” Hux pants, squirming while Ren dips his head low once more and kisses and sucks at Hux’s testicles. “Just fuck me and let’s just… please.”

Ren fixes Hux with a dark-eyed stare. “You want this.”

“Yes, of course I want this,” Hux says impatiently. “Why on all the worlds in the galaxy would I come to you in a robe, ingratiating myself, asking you for sex, if I didn’t _want_ – ”

“You’ve said no before. That’s all.”

There are several beats where Hux studies Ren’s face in the dim light of the bedroom. He really does have a few handsome features; those dark eyes, his plush lips. Hux wants to kiss those lips again, wants to spend the rest of the night with them locked on his own. “Not this time,” Hux insists.

Ren shrugs and sits up. He remains kneeling over Hux’s hips; Hux’s hands absently stroke Ren’s thighs over the fabric of his pants while he watches Ren strip his shirt off. Ren tosses the garment to the side, then leans down and kisses Hux again. It’s an open-mouthed kiss, Ren’s tongue hot against his own, and Hux chases it when Ren pulls away again.

“Pants too?” Ren hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his pants, pulling them down just enough for Hux to have a glimpse of the sharpness of his hip bones, and the attractive V of his muscles.

“Yes,” Hux breathes.

Ren slips sinuously out of his pants, letting his stiff cock spring free of them. Hux’s eyes widen at the sight while Ren tugs his pants all the way off and drops them unceremoniously on the floor. Once Ren has completely disrobed, he turns back to Hux.

“...You’re big,” Hux comments. 

“Mm,” Ren says, looking down at his own cock. He seems unsure, as if he thinks Hux is lying to inflate his ego.

“Really,” Hux assures him. He reaches out for Ren’s cock, palming it, brushing Ren’s testicles with his fingertips before stroking up his length. It feels hot and heavy and even larger in Hux’s hand than it had seemed upon visual inspection. Hux thinks it might be the biggest of any man he’s slept with – certainly the biggest he’ll have had to take.

“Hux,” Ren whispers. Hux hums and looks up at Ren’s face. Ren’s lips are parted, his breath puffing out between them in pleasure with each stroke of Hux’s hand. Ren’s dark eyelashes are beautiful fanning out over his cheeks. Hux readjusts his hand to get a more solid grip on Ren’s cock and reaches up to cup a hand behind Ren’s neck to pull him down for another kiss.

Ren fucks against Hux’s palm eagerly. Hux tries to get used to the feel of it, prepares himself for how Ren’s cock will feel inside him. When he feels his hand get slick with Ren’s precum, he releases his hold (with a grunt of frustration from Ren) and lounges back on the bed.

“You’ll have to get me ready if you’re intending to fuck me,” Hux says languidly. “I can promise you that you won’t fit, otherwise.”

“I know that,” Ren says.

Ren slides his hands up Hux’s thighs, spreading them a little wider. He uses his thumbs to spread the cheeks of Hux’s ass and rubs a pair of fingers over Hux’s hole and perineum. The touch is enough to raise goosebumps on Hux’s skin, but it certainly won’t fly to have Ren trying to put his fingers inside as he is.

“Do you have any – ” Hux says, “lube, or – something?”

“Of course I do,” Ren says, with a quirk of his mouth. “I was prepared for a full honeymoon’s worth of sex. And here we are, only having one night’s worth.”

Hux lies his head back on the pillow with a soft huff. Ren holds out his hand and summons the small bottle of lubricant from the drawer of the nightstand. _Showoff,_ Hux thinks as he watches Ren slick his fingers.

The lube is still cool when Ren presses his fingers to the rim of Hux’s hole. Hux sucks in a quick breath, and hears a murmured apology from Ren.

“Just one, first,” Hux says.

Ren slips a single finger inside Hux. _It’s been a long time,_ he thinks, even longer since he last had another man’s fingers inside him than the last time he’d had sex. The feeling is so different than his own fingers, foreign and yet sweet and pleasurable. Yet one finger isn’t nearly enough to satisfy, and Hux adjusts to it quickly. He rocks his hips against Ren’s hand, helping him push his finger in deeper and against Hux’s sensitive spots. It’s still not enough.

“More,” Hux sighs.

Ren works a second finger inside him. Hux feels the stretch against the ring of muscles inside him, and holds his breath while he waits for the sting to subside. When it has faded, Hux nods, telling Ren that it’s alright to move again. Ren does so, pushing his fingers in slowly and pulling them back out even slower, the sweet drag of his fingers inside Hux making him gasp and buck his hips for more and deeper sensation.

“Have you done this before?” Ren asks.

His voice pulls Hux out of the pleasurable fog in his own mind. Hux lifts his head and rests his gaze on Ren’s face.

“I’ve had fingers inside me, yes. My own, and others’.”

“And have you – ” Ren stops, and so do his fingers as they crook inside him.

“Have I, what?”

“You’ve been with other men.” A statement this time, not a question.

“Yes, I have,” Hux confirms. “Concerned for my virginity? Are you afraid you won’t be the best I’ve ever had?”

Ren frowns. “I didn’t say any of that.”

Hux shrugs. Ren pushes his fingers even farther into Hux, as deep as they’ll go, and Hux grunts.

“Have _you_ ever done this before?”

“This?” Ren asks, wriggling his fingers inside Hux. Hux squirms and gasps as those fingers brush against his prostate for an instant. “I’ve done it to myself. But never someone else, no.”

“Oh, you have?” Hux says. “And did you – ah, fuck – did you enjoy it? When you did it to yourself?”

Ren is quiet for a moment, and seems to be focusing on finding Hux’s prostate again. “Yes,” he says softly.

“Did you – mm – did you think about him?” Hux asks. He shuts his eyes tight, focuses his mind inward on the pleasure of Ren’s fingertips rubbing over his prostate. “Your knight in shining armor, with the dark hair – did you think about him while you fucked yourself?”

“I thought – I thought about him,” Ren admits. “And I thought about you.”

“About me?”

“Yes. I always knew – you were meant for me, so. I imagined you. I’ve thought about this – ” Ren nods at Hux’s body, and at his fingers working inside Hux, “ – a lot.”

“Meant for you.”

“Promised to me. Mine. And me, yours. You know what I mean.”

“And what did I do, in your fantasies?”

“Everything. But I think so much about – well, I’ll show you.”

Ren reaches up with his free hand and cups it at the curve of Hux’s neck, his thumb resting at Hux’s jaw and the rest of his fingers splayed over the back of Hux’s head. Hux gasps when Ren slides the thoughts into his brain. Hux sees himself, standing with his hard cock in hand over Ren whose face is tipped up and waiting; Ren with his legs spread wide with Hux’s head between them, Hux’s tongue laving over Ren’s hole; Ren on his hands and knees with Hux behind him, cock buried deep in his ass, Ren begging for more.

Ren’s presence in his mind is gone as quickly as it arrived, his hand sliding down to rest on Hux’s chest.

“Ah,” Hux says, “I understand.”

Ren doesn’t say anything, but even in the dim light Hux thinks he can see Ren’s cheeks flushing pink.

“So the king wants to bend over for the commoner, then,” Hux says.

“You’re not a commoner. You’re _my_ husband.”

“Well, I’m still only a duke – you’re certain you want me to fuck you? You seemed set on this.” Hux clenches a little around Ren’s fingers to remind him where they are.

“I thought this was what _you_ preferred. You _asked_ me to fuck you.”

“Well, I prefer the other way around,” Hux says. Ren raises his eyebrows. “I thought this was what was expected of me! ‘Bend over for the prince, let him have his way.’”

Ren frowns. “There’s nothing _expected_ of you. Stand up and take things for yourself, the way you want them. I’m surprised at your cowardice, sometimes.”

“Don’t call me a coward,” Hux says, lifting himself up onto his elbows.

Ren draws his fingers out of Hux, and Hux whimpers at the feeling of being left empty. He recovers quickly and sits up, steadying himself with hands on Ren’s shoulders, and leans in to take another kiss from him.

“On your back, my lord,” Hux says, and gives him a gentle push. Ren goes down easy. His legs splay wide, one on each side of Hux, his thick cock curving against his belly. He looks beautiful like this, open and inviting, almost challenging Hux to put his fingers inside and make him moan.

Hux splays his hands over Ren’s thighs and then slides them up, feels the lines of his abdominal muscles under the hot skin of his stomach. He feels Ren’s breath hitch as his fingertips ghost over Ren’s ribs. The sleeves of the robe are getting in the way of Hux’s hands as he drags them back down Ren’s body, and he grows impatient with the garment altogether. He’s no longer cold, with his blood pumping so quickly and hotly through his veins with his arousal.

“This robe,” Hux says, “was it really your mother’s?”

Ren shakes his head. “It was mine. When I was young. It used to fit, then.”

Hux isn’t sure if it’s worse that he’s wearing something that belonged to Ren in childhood or if it had been Ren’s mother’s. He slides the robe off his shoulders and drops it to the floor at the foot of the bed. He grabs the bottle of lubricant before positioning himself between Ren’s spread legs.

Hux lets the lubricant sit on his fingers to warm before he approaches Ren’s hole with them. He uses his clean hand to spread the cheeks of Ren’s ass, a warm, dry thumb rubbing over Ren’s hole as a forewarning before he rubs his pair of slicked fingers over Ren’s entrance. Ren’s hole flutters under Hux’s touch and Hux prepares for the tightness of someone like Ren – _a virgin,_ Hux thinks, with the slightest amount of satisfaction. Hux has been with virgins before, of course, and men who hadn’t yet been with men. Somehow it’s more exciting with Ren than it ever was with them.

“If this is how you think you’ll like it,” Hux says, his fingers sliding slickly over Ren’s hole, “then I’ll show you how much you can _really_ like it.”

Hux gives Ren a single finger at first, and Ren accepts it easily. Ren had practiced this, Hux now remembers, fingering himself. Hux curls the finger up against Ren’s prostate and is rewarded with a choked-off moan and one of Ren’s hands reaching out to run his fingers through Hux’s hair.

The glide of Hux’s finger in and out of Ren becomes smooth as Ren relaxes around him. Hux is thinking of adding another finger when Ren gives a particularly loud moan and begs, “Hux – more,” and Hux obliges him. He slides a second finger inside Ren beside the first, working slowly at first, until he comes to rest knuckle-deep inside Ren.

“Move, Hux,” Ren gasps.

Hux shrugs a shoulder and curls his fingers inside Ren. With each thrust of his fingers he pushes relentlessly at the small lump of Ren’s prostate. Ren squirms and moans beneath him. _He looks beautiful_ , Hux thinks, his skin beginning to take on a light sheen with his sweat and his curling black hair wild around his face. Hux spreads his fingers and begins really working him open.

Ren’s cock drools precum onto his stomach, and Hux doesn’t miss the way Ren’s hips buck and his cock thrusts at open air, seeking friction. Hux curls his fingers around the base of Ren’s cock, giving him something, but not everything. Ren cries out and tries to push his hips as far into the mattress as he can to get the grip of Hux’s hand nearer the head of his cock. The attempt sparks something like amusement in Hux, and he has mercy on Ren – he slides his hand up and rubs his thumb over the head of Ren’s cock, making Ren groan at the intensity of the sensation.

“I could make you cum like this,” Hux mutters, his teeth scraping gently against the skin of Ren’s collarbone. “Should I?”

“Please, Hux,” Ren gasps.

Hux lifts his hand from where it has been holding on to Ren’s thigh and wraps it instead around the base of Ren’s cock. He gives a few upward strokes, matching them with the pace of his fingers curling inside Ren. Hux’s fingers catch some of the precum that has been leaking from the tip of Ren’s cock and it lubricates his movements, making his hand move slick and easy over Ren’s length. Ren’s hips twitch erratically, fucking up into Hux’s hand and grinding down onto Hux’s fingers, chasing whichever sensation that will push him over the edge. Hux stops the push and pull of his fingers in favor of pressing exclusively at Ren’s prostate. It seems to do the trick: Ren gives a low groan and then his cock is twitching in Hux’s hand, his semen spilling over his own stomach in thick stripes. Hux feels the heat of his desire flare higher. He bends and kisses at Ren’s neck, eager for something to occupy his mouth and hardly caring about the way Ren’s cum smears between them.

“Hux,” Ren breathes above Hux’s head as Hux sucks a bruise into the hollow of Ren’s neck, “fuck me.”

Hux hums a noise of assent and lowers a hand to his own cock as he sits up. He pulls his fingers out and immediately replaces them with the head of his cock pushing at Ren’s hole. Ren is panting, heavy outward puffs of air. Hux hears the barest whisper of the word _please_ tumble from Ren’s lips, and Hux pushes himself slowly inside Ren’s body.

“Tight,” Hux comments, feeding himself into Ren inch by inch.

Ren is too lost in the feeling of Hux pushing into him to hear what Hux said. Ren’s head is thrown back on the pillow, his dark hair fanned out under his head, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth a perfect O of ecstasy. As Hux bottoms out inside him, it wrings a moan from Ren’s throat, followed by a desperate gasp for air.

“Fuck,” Ren says. He reaches a hand up and catches Hux by the back of the neck. He pulls Hux down into a sloppy, open-mouthed, and passionate kiss.

Hux pulls out, savoring the tight drag of Ren’s hole around his shaft, then pushes back in slowly. Ren groans against Hux’s mouth.

Hux shifts his hands to explore Ren’s body. The muscles of his core are tightly coiled and Hux can feel the clear lines of his abdominals. Ren cries out gratefully when Hux’s thumbs brush over his nipples. Hux’s hands trace down from the broad-set lines of his ribs and down his slim waist to his muscular hips. His last order of business is to put a hand between them, reaching down for Ren’s cock.

“Hard again already?” Hux says, palming Ren’s erection.

Ren doesn’t say anything. Hux rearranges Ren’s legs so that his knees curl over Hux’s shoulders, lifting Ren’s ass high off the bed and putting his hips at the level of Hux’s. Hux drives up into him, aiming for Ren’s prostate.

“Hux, fuck, right there – ”

Hux turns his head to one side and kisses down the inside of Ren’s thigh, as far as he can get. His pace doesn’t flag. He fucks Ren hard and steady, the head of his cock rubbing over Ren’s prostate with every thrust.

“Ahh, Hux, I’m close…” Ren groans after a while of Hux’s steady, even fucking.

At this, Hux puts more effort into his thrusts, fucking Ren harder and faster, pushing him to his second orgasm. Hux tightens his hand around Ren’s cock as well, letting Ren fuck through a tighter grip. Ren gasps. Hux feels Ren’s body tense and coil, his hole bearing down around Hux’s cock. With a long sigh Ren comes again, cum spilling over his abdomen and chest and dribbling over Hux’s fingers.

The fluttering of Ren’s hole around Hux’s cock as Ren comes down from his orgasm is much too strong a sensation for Hux. He feels his orgasm building quickly. He has the forethought to pull out of Ren and drop him to the bed, ignoring Ren’s groan of protest at the sudden emptiness. Hux lets himself fall forward, supporting himself with one hand planted on the bed next to Ren’s chest, the other hand gripping his own cock and pumping fast around it. He feels his orgasm rise and then crest, the muscles of his core clenching and his cum pooling in the line of Ren’s hip. He keeps his eyes shut until he is sure he has completely spent himself.

When Hux has finished, he lets his other hand drop to the bed and bends for a kiss from Ren. Their kiss is slower now, more languid and less urgent now that they’ve both gotten off.

“You should have finished inside,” Ren says. He lies perfectly still except for his breathing, which is fast and deep, but the rest of his body seems to be exhausted and satisfied and totally boneless for it.

“It’s not very comfortable,” Hux says. “It’s actually very strange, the feeling of cum inside you. You probably wouldn’t like it.”

“I want to find out.”

Hux lifts his leg over Ren and slips out of bed. He wets a cloth in the bathroom sink and brings it back for Ren.  He watches Ren clean himself off, and begins to feel a chill as he stands naked in the room with his pulse slowing back to its resting rate. He slips under the covers of the bed to preserve his warmth.

The two of them lie in bed in silence, unmoving except for the moments it takes Ren to slide under the sheets as well. Hux feels like he should say something; some words of kindness, perhaps, or appreciation. He struggles to come up with something, but nothing quite sounds right.

“It wasn’t bad,” Hux offers, unasked. After another beat of silence, he sits up and begins to slip out of bed. 

“Stay,” Ren says, and Hux stops. 

“Don’t tell me you’re a cuddler,” Hux says. He stares at his toes where they have only just poked out from under the quilt. Though he complains, he can’t keep himself from imagining spending the night curled in Ren’s arms, sleeping with the warmth of another person for the first time in…

“We don’t have to,” Ren says. His voice suggests he wouldn’t be opposed to wrapping his arms around Hux, holding him close through the night. “I just – let me have the satisfaction of having my husband in my bed for one whole night. I want that. Even if I never have this again.”

Hux feels a pang of something in the region of his heart. Sadness, perhaps, or guilt. He pulls his feet back under the blanket.

“Come here,” Hux says, and Ren comes. Ren’s arms circle themselves around Hux’s waist, bare skin against bare skin, his hands splaying across Hux’s back as he pulls Hux close.

Hux settles into the hug, relishing the comforting feeling of skin on skin. Ren breathes slowly, his chest pressed against Hux’s such that Hux can feel every breath.

“Please don’t worry,” Hux says.

Ren opens an eye and looks up at Hux, a question on his lips that he keeps held in.

“It wasn’t so bad that I’ll never share your bed again,” Hux says, glad for the darkness of the room to hide the way his cheeks color. “You don’t have to worry about this being the last night.”

A beat of silence. “Is that supposed to be flattering?”

“No. Not really. I only mean that… I’ve been an ass. I haven’t been a good husband. I intend to be better, from now on.”

“Sex isn’t the only thing you’re good for as my husband, you know,” Ren says. “If you think you have to fuck me just so you can be a good husband, then – ”

“That’s not what I meant,” Hux says. “I meant I’ve been cruel to you, and cold, and that was wrong of me.”

“You’re apologizing. For being insufferable.”

“I’m apologizing, yes.”

Ren settles his head down again, resting his cheek on Hux’s chest. “You’re forgiven,” he says.

Hux bends his neck and presses a kiss to the crown of Ren’s head. For the first time in weeks, Hux feels truly at ease. He would never have imagined that Ren fits at his side so well.

“Good night, Ren,” Hux mumbles, when he feels himself begin to drift to sleep.

“Good night, Hux.”

 

~*~

 

Hux wakes in the morning to different light than he has been accustomed to – the sun rises on the other side of the house, so the morning sunlight in this bedroom is much softer, and much more to Hux’s taste. He wishes he had been waking up to this for the whole honeymoon.

Hux recognizes after a few seconds the real reason he’s awake. He feels a hand stroking up the outside of his thigh, big and warm and a little callused.

“Ren,” Hux says. His voice is deep with sleep, and he lets his eyes droop closed again. He shifts towards Ren’s touch.

“You’re awake,” Ren says.

Hux hums an answer in the affirmative. Ren leans in and kisses him; a lazy, sleepy thing, both of their mouths tasting like morning breath but neither caring much. Hux lets Ren explore his mouth for a while before he feels firm pressure from Ren’s hands on his shoulders forcing him to lie flat on his back. Ren drops his kisses lower on Hux’s body, his chest and then his stomach until he has settled between Hux’s legs.

“There’s something else I wanted to try last night,” Ren murmurs against the skin of Hux’s navel.

Ren’s lips brush the dusting of hair that leads down to Hux’s groin, and Hux hears himself moan. Ren’s broad hands hold his hips down. Hux is mostly hard from waking with morning wood and Ren’s touch is rousing him again.

Hux sucks in a shuddering gasp when he feels the brush of Ren’s lips at the base of his cock, his hands lifting and coming to rest at the back of Ren’s neck.

“You’re interested, I see,” Ren says.

“More than interested,” Hux breathes.

Ren’s tongue laves up the length of Hux’s cock until he reaches its tip. With a glance up at Hux, Ren finally wraps his lips around Hux’s cock. Ren sucks gently at the tip, the contact teasing, and then wraps his lips around the first inch of Hux’s cock and pulls gently with his mouth, wet lips sliding deliciously over the head of Hux’s cock. Hux resists the urge to buck his hips and fuck into Ren’s mouth.

“Mm,” Ren hums. The vibration makes Hux swallow against saliva pooling in his mouth.

“More tongue,” Hux says, running his fingers through the thick tangle of Ren’s dark hair, “more on the head – ah, that’s it…”

Ren keeps his eyes locked on Hux’s as much as possible – when Hux’s eyes are open, and when Ren isn’t concentrating on swallowing more of Hux’s cock. Hux feels his climax start to build, low in his hips, Ren doing his best to swallow around the girth of Hux’s cock sitting heavy on the back of his tongue.

“Ren – I’m going to come, you should…”

Ren is occupied with his tongue twisting around Hux’s shaft. Hux manages to pull him off just in time to avoid filling Ren’s mouth with cum, but he does end up streaking Ren’s face with it. Hux gasps and strokes himself through his orgasm. When he is spent, he looks at Ren’s white-streaked face just in time to watch Ren lick some of his cum from his lips and the area surrounding them and swallow it bravely.

Hux reaches out and wipes cum from Ren’s eyelid with his thumb. “You should clean up,” Hux says. “Wash your face and then come back to bed.”

Ren nods and disappears into the bathroom. Hux listens to the sink running as he lies back and lets his heartbeat settle in the wake of his orgasm. Ren returns in a minute with a clean face, his eyelashes damp where they hadn’t been patted completely dry like his skin. Ren crawls back into bed with Hux, slipping himself under the covers and holding himself on all fours over Hux.

“Do you want me to return the favor?” Hux asks, fitting his hand in the curve of Ren’s neck.

Ren’s cheeks tint pink. “No, I – already…”

“Oh,” Hux says, “I see. You got off on sucking my cock.”

Ren’s blush deepens. Hux gives a soft laugh and slips his hand forward to cup Ren’s face.

“My sister told me this would happen,” Hux says fondly.

Ren looks at him askance, completely unsure of what Hux is referring to. Hux can see him hoping he’s not talking about Ren coming while sucking Hux’s cock.

“That I’d come to know your face,” Hux says, stroking Ren’s jaw with a thumb. “That I’d come to like it.”

Ren kisses him then, his lips soft and warm on Hux’s. He tastes like Hux, a little, but mostly like himself. Hux intends to grow used to that taste. They kiss for a long while, until Ren’s arms begin to wobble under him, and then they collapse together in bed. Ren fits himself to Hux’s side, his head on Hux’s chest, arms around Hux’s waist, one hand tracing the lines of Hux’s body.

“We’re not accomplishing anything by this, you know,” Hux says. “You swallowing my seed won’t give us an heir. By rights you should have been putting a baby in me last night – or me in you, I suppose.”

“Who gives a fuck about an heir?” Ren says, trailing his fingers up Hux’s thigh. Hux raises his eyebrows and looks down at Ren, though he knows Ren won’t see the expression change. “I don’t even want a child. Let’s just enjoy our lives for a while.”

“We’ll need an heir someday,” Hux protests.

“Of course we will. Someday. It shouldn’t have to be now.”

“People will expect it soon, and – ”

“Then they can change their expectations.”

Hux stares at him. The idea is radical – Hux has been told, his whole life, to be obedient and follow orders. Making his own decisions, putting off starting a family until their lives settle… it seems too much to hope.

“Well,” Hux says slowly. “A baby _would_ throw off my five-year plan…”

“A baby would ruin all our fun,” Ren says. “Imagine having to tend to a _child._ I hate the idea.”

Hux feels a surge of gratitude. He pulls Ren up and kisses him again, hot and full on the mouth.

“You’re right,” Hux says. “A child _would_ ruin all our fun.”

Ren laughs low in his throat for a moment until the sound is interrupted by gasping as Hux slips his hand between Ren’s legs once again.

 

~*~

 

On the last morning of their honeymoon, Hux and Ren wake together. Hux intends to bathe first thing and then begin packing their luggage. Upon trying to slip out of bed and head for the shower, Hux had found himself stopped by the iron grip of Ren’s arm around his waist.

“Stay,” Ren had said. “Packing can wait.”

Some time later, with both of them sated and relaxed and post-coital, Hux finally manages to slip out of bed and make it to the shower. He is joined by Ren in under a minute, and the cycle repeats. Hux forgets the routine of showering under the feel of Ren’s lips and hands and cock.

“Cleanup is easy when we do it here,” Ren murmurs when they’ve finished, his mouth against the hollow of Hux’s neck, Hux’s skin and Ren’s face wet from the stream of water that’s still running over their bodies.

“Lewd,” Hux admonishes. “Let’s finish this shower – the water’s going cold.”

After the shower they pack their bags, Hux gathering most of his things from where they still sit in the bedroom at the other end of the hall. It seems to go too quickly, and the result is unsatisfying and melancholy. All their things stuffed into a couple of bags, the traces of their time spent in the house together packed away to be brought with them to their separate destinations – Ren going back to the Palace on Corellia, and Hux back to the _Augury_.

The ship they’d arrived in is back and parked on the gravel landing circle of the front lawn. The butler and groundskeeper bring their bags to the ship ahead of them.

“Did you enjoy our honeymoon?” Ren asks, turning back to look at the house.

“Yes,” Hux says truthfully. “I did.”

When Hux and Ren step onto the ship, Hux is sad to leave it all behind. Perhaps they’ll visit again someday, years from now, to relive their honeymoon. Perhaps they’ll have children someday who will sleep in the bedroom Ren slept in as a child, where Hux spent the majority of their honeymoon. Maybe there will still be an archery range in the woods, and a lake with a little, mossy boat, and beasts to ride through the countryside.

The inside of the ship is dimly-lit and cool, a sudden change from the sunny weather outside. Hux sits down to prepare to take off, and this time, Ren sits with him.

“We’ll be at Corellia soon,” the pilot informs them.

Hux turns to Ren. He knows he’ll be hopping on a transport back to the _Augury_ as soon as they reach Corellia, and he knows he’ll be leaving Ren behind. Ren looks back at him, his thumb rubbing the back of Hux’s gloved hand absently.

“I’ll… I’ll miss you,” Hux admits.

Ren looks at him, seeming surprised at the admission.

“I know it took a long time for us to get used to each other,” Hux says, “and I know I had designs on disappearing into my work and the depths of space and hardly seeing you, but I don’t want that anymore. I’ll take leave as soon as I’m able, and we’ll be together…”

“Hux,” Ren says. “You have a job to do. I know that as well as you.”

“I – yes. You’re quite right, I do.”

“We will make this marriage work,” Ren promises.

“We will,” Hux agrees. “Yes. We will.”

The ship shudders through the Corellian atmosphere as they make their way to the surface, and Hux holds Ren’s hand tightly in his own the whole time.

When they step out of the ship and into the Corellian sunlight – and really, it’s not so bad, Hux thinks, the sunlight on this planet – they are greeted by a handful of servants. They set about removing Hux and Ren’s bags from the ship, but they don’t drag Hux’s back to the Palace.

“When will my ship be arriving?” Hux asks Ren.

“Unfortunately, you’ll have to delay your trip by a few hours,” Ren says calmly.

“What for?” Hux says. “I’m needed at my post, Ren. I’m supposed to get back as soon as possible.”

“You _will_ be getting back as soon as possible – after I have time to pack my things.”

Hux frowns. “Pack your – ?”

“I’ll be coming with you,” Ren says simply.

Hux stares at him dumbly. Ren – coming with him, back to the _Augury_? Hux’s brain works furiously, seeking an explanation, some clues he must have missed.

“I’m a diplomat, if you recall,” Ren says. “And I’ve managed to secure diplomatic clearance to be aboard the _Augury_. Oh, but I have been told you don’t have any spare quarters aboard your ship to house me. If that’s the case, I suppose you and I will have to share.”

 

_End._

**Author's Note:**

> reminder to watch [blithesea](http://blithesea.tumblr.com)'s amazing video for this fic [here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7087510)
> 
>  
> 
> find me on tumblr [here!](http://internetqueers.tumblr.com)


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